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SHANNON Airport was closed to aircraft for four and a half hours this morning, but it could have been much worse but for the fact a fire on board a plane was quickly spotted and extinguished. Director of Operations at Shannon Airport Niall Maloney said that the response began at 6.15am. “We were alerted by air traffic control to an issue with an aircraft that we responded to. We were responding to smoke in the undercarriage but it developed into a fire.” The aircraft in question was an Omni Boeing 767-300 which had travelled from America to Shannon and was due to go onwards to the Middle East. While Omni typically use Shannon to transport troops, there has not been confirmation as to whether or not troops were on board the plane on this occasion. There were 145 passengers and 14 crew on board the aircraft at the time and Mr Maloney said they were all uninjured. “One passenger may …
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