Palma flights grounded after drone sighting

Flight operations were temporarily suspended, the air navigation authority, Enaire said.

A drone sighting near the airport sparked the shutdown.

All flights were temporarily held.

It led to about a dozen flights diverted to other airports, such as Barcelona and Valencia.

The ground-stop only about one hour but caused subsequent flight delays of up to 90 minutes as the airport worked to get through the delay backlog.

There were scores of British holidaymakers stranded for some time at the airport according to reports.

Drones are prohibited from flying within 5km of an airport without special advance authorisation.

This latest incident at Palma follows drone incursions at multiple airports in Scandinavia and Germany.

Spanish authorities have launched an investigation which will likely look at any links to any of these other drone incidents across Europe recently.

Shortly after 6.30pm UK time, it was reported flights were able to land at the airport again.