easyJet flight diverted to Newcastle Airport

The plane was diverted to Newcastle Airport, the first officer ended up landing the plane while the standby captain was called to operate the plane.

According to our Newcastle airport parking team who witnessed the incident, the reasons are unknown as to why the pilot was taken ill. This kind of incident has been a more common occurrence than you may think recently however.  

On the 20^th of December, a BA flight from Heathrow to Glasgow actually had to turn back due to both the captain and the first officer falling ill whilst in flight. BA said that just as a precaution they deployed oxygen masks on the flight deck.

There may be various reasons as to why the pilots fell ill but it doesn’t seem likely that either BA or Easyjet will go into detail to avoid alarming passengers. A likely culprit could be the in-flight food that pilots often have to eat or the enormous stress that pilots often find themselves working under.

Airlines, however, would be unlikely to admit to either cause this due to the competitive nature of commercial airlines and the damage it might do to their reputations.