THREE INDIVIDUAL PLANES carrying passenger flights operated by Delta Air Lines suffered engine issues over the weekend – including one flight which was forced to make an emergency landing at Shannon Airport, with the other two making emergency landings in the United States within an hour of each other yesterday.

Last night a Boeing 767 plane bound for Moscow was forced to return to its departure point of John F Kennedy airport after losing power from its left engine shortly after takeoff at 9:39pm Irish time.

Fire engines and over 100 firefighters were summoned to the airport based on mistaken reports that there had been a fire on the left wing. The New York Fire Department added, however, that the plane had shed much of its fuel load before re-landing at 11pm.

American news site The Daily Caller quotes a passenger as saying the cabin crew attributed the engine’s problems to a bird strike, with the captain advising passengers not to panic if they saw fuel from through the window. There were 193 passengers and 11 crew members on board.

Less than an hour later, another 767 carrying 190 passengers and 11 crew had to return to to Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta, having been bound for Los Angeles, after als0 declaring an engine failure.

The latter flight scraped its tail upon landing but taxied safely back to its gate without assistance.

The two aborted flights yesterday followed an emergency landing at Shannon Airport on Saturday evening after a Boeing 757 developed a problem with one of its two engines while crossing the Atlantic from Philadelphia.

A Delta spokesman last month acknowledged that the airline was experiencing more mid-flight engine shutdowns than it had previously recorded.