Full emergency at Sumburgh airport

A FULL emergency at Sumburgh airport on Wednesday afternoon saw all of Shetland’s air, sea and land rescue services scrambled as an Eastern Airways flight carrying more than 30 oil workers raised the alarm.

Police, fire, ambulance and coastguard services as well as the Lerwick lifeboat went into action after the pilot sent out a Mayday at 5.10pm.

The Saab 2000 with 35 people on board managed to land safely at Sumburgh airport and all the emergency services were stood down.

A coastguard spokesman said that as well as tasking their search and rescue helicopter 102, they had called out auxiliary coastguard teams from Lerwick, Noness and Sumburgh and the Lerwick lifeboat had been launched.

One hour after the incident started all units were stood down.

A fire service spokeswoman said that everyone on board the plane had been safely evacuated.

Details of the flight or the cause of the emergency have yet to emerge.