AN OIL worker has been reliving the drama of an emergency landing after pilots reported smoke in the plane.

James Pinder described how the BMI flight had begun “bucking and bouncing” after an electrical fault caused a burning smell in the cockpit.

Passengers complained of smoke in the cabin only minutes after the Manchester-bound flight had taken off from Aberdeen Airport on Thursday.

Mr Pinder (59) was returning home to Sale in Manchester when he realised something was wrong.

“Everybody was saying, ‘Can you smell that?’ ” said Mr Pinder, a rig mechanic for drilling company KCA Deutag on the Beryl Bravo platform.

“There was a very strong smell of smoke.

“The plane started bucking and bouncing all over the place.

“For a couple of minutes it was bobbing and weaving from side to side and up and down.

“The worst part of it was I believe that they lost all flight-deck instrumentation.”

The captain declared an emergency and turned back to Aberdeen, where emergency crews were on stand-by.

“They had warned us to belt up tight but the landing was not particularly hard,” Mr Pinder said, “The captain pulled off to one of the side tracks and the Tannoy came over, ‘Everybody out of the cabin.’ ”

The 16 passengers—about a third of whom were oil workers—two pilots and two cabin crew were evacuated down the steps at the front of the Embraer jet.

“I spoke to the pilot and co-pilot afterwards and he said the smell was worse in the cockpit than it was in the cabin,” the oilman said. “Nobody was injured. Some people were a bit scared but the crew and pilots did a good job.”

The 12.15pm flight from Aberdeen had already been delayed until 1pm because the fire alarm had gone off at the airport, forcing evacuation of the building.

A spokesman for BMI said, “There was some kind of burning in the cockpit.

“It was an electrical shorting-out which resulted in smoke coming through into the cabin.

“As a result the captain declared a full emergency landing, which is fairly routine in those circumstances.

“Fire services attended and the passengers and crew evacuated the aircraft and the fire service gave the aircraft a good going over before releasing it to the engineers.”

He said the plane, one of 16 such models used by BMI for UK and European flights and capable of carrying up to 50 passengers, was being examined by engineers.

“It’s a very reliable aircraft and they are all relatively young,” the he added.

A spokesman for Aberdeen Airport said, “An investigation is under way as to what happened.”

The passengers were on their way again by 3pm.