Alicante-Elche airport has now been reopened to air traffic with work completed to move a private jet away from the runway at just after 5.30pm.
Take offs and landings were initially suspended at about 2pm when a private jet en route from Amsterdam skidded off the runway. It was thought at the time that the accident could have been caused by either a blowout on a tyre or brake failure as the pilot attempted to bring the aircraft to a halt.
During the period of closure, of the twenty scheduled arrivals, 12 aircraft were diverted to València airport, 3 to Murcia and the rest to Ibiza and Barcelona.
According to Aena, the runway was reopened at 17.40 hours so the airfield was closed for about three and a half hours. According to the airport panels, delayed departures were to Milan (scheduled at 13.45), Madrid (13.50), Santiago (13.55), Glasgow (14.05), Bristol (14.15), Glasgow (14.35), Dublin (14.40), Ibiza (14.45), Dusseldorf (11.45), Birmingham (15.05), Berlin-Teg (15.10), Bristol (15.15), Moscow (15.15), Cork (15.20), Bilbao (15.20), Kaunas (15.25) and Stockholm (15.30) ).
Also to Lisbon (15.30), London Stansted (15.40), Oslo (15.40), Bremen (15.50), Newcastle (15.50), Rotterdam (15.50), Vaxjo (15.50), Palma de Mallorca (16.05), Moscow (16.10), Gothenburg (16.10), Londers Gatwick (16.30), Palma de Mallorca (16.50), London Gatwick (17.00), Southend (17.05), Parbudice (17.10) and Zurich (17.10).
The authorities are now saying that it will take another 3 or 4 hours to clear the backlog while accident investigators are still unsure as to the cause of the crash.
