Air passengers played emergency message 'in error'

Passengers "panicked" as an emergency message was accidentally played on a flight from London Gatwick Airport.

Airline Aurigny said a member of staff played the recording in "challenging conditions" on a flight to Guernsey on Saturday.

The government-owned island airline apologised to passengers for the "error", saying it would work with staff to prevent a similar incident.

The message was played on an evening flight on Saturday 8 December.

In a statement, Aurigny said: "Our staff operate in challenging conditions and at the time it was rough, dark and very busy and these circumstances all contributed to this rare incident.

"Aurigny apologises for any distress this may have caused our customers on this flight."

Guernsey experienced extremely windy weather on Saturday evening, with strong-to-gale force westerly winds forecast for around the time of the flight.

One passenger wrote on Facebook: "Turns out the air hostess pressed the wrong button.

"Everything was sound until about 10 mins before landing with the wind last night obviously the plane was all over the place.

"Can safely say everyone was panicking. They couldn't apologise enough and a top job to the pilots for landing in that wind - was very rough."