A PILOT stunned passengers as they reached the end of their 300-mile flight by announcing: "Sorry, I'm not qualified to land this plane!"

The Flybe service was approaching Paris when the captain was told the airport was shrouded in thick fog.

Air traffic controllers then checked if he was up to landing and the pilot had to admit he had not done the necessary training for that type of plane.

Appalled ... passenger Cassandra Grant

The 80-seater flight from Cardiff then had to go back to the Welsh capital.

Passenger Cassandra Grant, 29, said: "We were 20 minutes from landing, when the captain said, 'Unfortunately I'm not qualified to land the plane in Paris. They're asking for a level two qualification and I only have a level five. We'll have to fly back'."

Flight BE1431 had already been delayed by fog for three hours at Cardiff International Airport on Tuesday morning. The pilot — who has not been named — eventually took off at the controls of a propeller-driven Bombardier Q400 plane. But he was refused permission to land at Charles de Gaulle Airport — where visibility was just 700 metres.

The plane returned to Cardiff where most passengers flew back on the next flight to Paris — with a fully qualified pilot.

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Cassandra, who paid £220 for the trip and missed a job interview, said: "Everyone was appalled and there was concern he wasn't fully qualified."

A Flybe spokeswoman said: "The pilot is an experienced aviator with more than 30 years' commercial aviation experience."

The Civil Aviation Authority added: "If the pilot had landed in Paris he could have been prosecuted under the Air Navigation Orders."

Bah - anyone can land a plane.

It's just the trick of landing it PROPERLY thats tricky.

The joke amongst the instructors at the flying school I attended was:

"Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing".

No use playing with ppls lives, better he turn around then kill innocent passengers.

In the RAF they term a landing as a controlled crash.

The Civil Aviation Authority added: "If the pilot had landed in Paris he could have been prosecuted under the Air Navigation Orders."

Who would have known? He was making a point (for which he could not be sacked). It seems there MayBe industrial rumblings at FlyBe

The Civil Aviation Authority added: "If the pilot had landed in Paris he could have been prosecuted under the Air Navigation Orders."

Who would have known? He was making a point (for which he could not be sacked). It seems there MayBe industrial rumblings at FlyBe

Very true, ATC Paris wouldn't know his qual's, his employers wouldn't have known the conditions he landed in. The self loading freight though may have had a clue if he fcuked it up.

Too be able to do a low visibility landing in fog <550m vis. the pilots need to have:

1. Received CAT 2/3 training and numerous landings in those conditions - He may be awaiting that training or they were unable to do it for some reason in his previous recurrent training. He is still qualified and perfectly able to carry out all approach and landings down to 550m visibility.

2. He has to have carried out a Cat 2/3 landing (<550m) in the last 28 days either for real or simulated. He may have been out of recency with this criteria and therefore would have been illegal if he had made the approach and landing (Not that he is not capable of doing it)

Its a legal issue not a pilot ability issue.....F***in press as usual.

his employers wouldn't have known the conditions he landed in

yes they would via the aircraft tech log / computerized flight plan. Paris ATC would have requrested which type of approach (Cat 2? Cat 3?) which is noted and recorded. If the pilots were ramp checked in Paris by the civil aviation department it would have been a little bit of an issue.

He did the correct thing no point risking your license by being so unprofessional and making the approach.

But he was coming from Cardiff - with the constant heavy rain there I have never had visibility of 550 metres - lucky to see 100 metres.

The main thing with flying...

Taking off is optional.

........landing is not.