FLYBE grounded an aircraft in Guernsey yesterday because of fears its landing gear might not be safe. It followed advice from the manufacturer Bombardier to inspect all Q400 turboprops which have made more than 10,000 landings.

That was issued after two Q400s owned by Scandinavian Airlines crashed while landing in the past three days. There were no major injuries.

In all, Flybe grounded six aircraft, but its flights were largely back on schedule by lunchtime after it brought in others.

Maintenance crews in Guernsey will check the aircraft over in an inspection expected to last between 24 and 48 hours.

Flybe’s chief commercial officer Mike Rutter apologised to passengers for the disruption.

‘Hopefully people will understand. We only got the message from the manufacturer at 6am and it was impossible to put anything else in place,’ he said.

He added notification of any problems usually happened at night so there was no other way of dealing with it.

Yesterday morning’s flights to and from Southampton were cancelled and the Manchester one delayed by two hours.

There were 52 passengers due to come from Southampton, some for the Battle of Britain air display.

Many were bussed to Gatwick and flew from there.

The airline expected today’s schedule to run as normal.

Until investigations are finished, Bombardier is not commenting on the cause of the incidents.