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Belfast Live
Belfast Live
National
Cormac O'Shea & Jonathon Manning

Journalist flew out of Dublin Airport during Storm Eunice but ended up in the wrong country

A journalist who flew out from Dublin Airport during Storm Eunice ended up landing in the wrong country after his flight was diverted.

Cormac O'Shea, from the Irish Mirror, set off on a Ryanair flight at 10.15am flight from Dublin on Friday (February 18) morning and was expected to land in Birmingham later that day.

But Cormac's plans were not to be, as the strong winds and bad weather forced the pilot to divert their flight.

READ MORE: Belfast social photos as punters brave Storm Eunice

Many journeys have been cancelled during Storm Eunice, which has led to rare red weather warnings being issued in Wales and southeast England, but after arriving at the airport in calm conditions, Cormac thought his flight would go smoothly.

The flight went ahead as planned, with the journalist describing the initial ascent as "rocky, but nothing too frightening".

It was only supposed to take 40 minutes to reach Birmingham but when the plane started its descent Cormac said the plane began "bouncing from side to side rather violently".

A two-year-old sitting next to him seemed to be the calmest person on the flight, describing it as "wibbly wobbly".

The pilot however, realised that it would not be possible to land the plane and informed the passengers that the plane would circle around and try again.

But the second attempt never came, with the plane instead flying higher and higher.

It was only after this that the pilot informed the passengers that they would eventually be landing in Prestwick, in Glasgow.

Many of the passengers did not even know where Prestwick was, and to be fair, the small airport was in a different country to the one they were intending to travel to.

Commenting on the flight Cormac said: "A 35 minute journey followed and we touched down in the quiet Scottish airport, many just happy to be out of the skies.

"Ryanair gave options, stay onboard in the hope of getting back to Birmingham or get off and get a bus which they said would take 'eight or nine hours'."

The plane was expected to fly back to Dublin.

Dublin Airport Terminal 2 (Tomasz Skoczen/Getty Images)

The passengers decided to wait for the bus, which took two hours to arrive and a further five hours to reach its final destination of Birmingham.

But the travellers were left even more disheartened when they got on the bus and found out that their plane had arrived in Birmingham without them.

Ryanair apologised to their customers via text and email but Cormac was clear that it "was not within their control".

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