A US-BOUND jet made an emergency landing at Dublin Airport this morning after the crew reported they had suffered a cracked windshield over the North Atlantic.

Egypt Air flight 987 took off from Cairo at around 2.15am Irish time destined for Newark in the US state of New Jersey. There were 287 passengers and crew on board.

About five hours after departure, the Boeing 787-900 Dreamliner jet flew over Ireland and commenced its oceanic crossing.

Later, when the jet was about 1,000 kilometres northwest of Mayo, the flight crew declared an emergency reporting that a cockpit wind had sustained damaged. It’s understood that a crack appeared in one of the aircraft’s windshields.

The flight was cleared to turn around and descend from 36,000 to 15,000 feet and divert initially to Shannon Airport.

At one point, air traffic controllers in Ireland could not make radio contact with the Egyptair flight and asked two aircraft in the area to relay communications. It’s understood the Egyptair aircraft was outside radio coverage for Ireland at the time.

Communication was later established with the emergency aircraft and the crew confirmed they were declaring a Mayday and wished to divert to Dublin Airport.

An emergency plan have been implemented at Shannon which involved notifying the Munster Regional Communications Centre (Fire), the HSE, National Ambulance Service and An Garda Síochána.

Units of Clare County Fire and Rescue Service from Shannon and Ennis stations; ambulance paramedics and Gardaí were also mobilised to Shannon Airport to support the airport’s own fire and rescue service.

Soon afterwards however, the emergency at Shannon was stood down when it was confirmed that the flight crew would be diverting to Dublin Airport instead.

The flight landed safely in Dublin at 11.10am and was met by airport fire and rescue crews. The jet was accompanied by fire crews to its parking stand where engineers were standing by to inspect the cockpit window.

The emergency aircraft is expected to remain grounded in Dublin until repairs can be completed. It’s understood the airline will send a replacement aircraft to Dublin later to take the passengers onto their destination.