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A private plane carrying Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany veered off the runway at Norwich International Airport yesterday just over an hour after the Belgian had watched his side progress to the FA Cup fourth round.

The incident caused the airport to close for four hours until the aircraft was removed.

The defender, currently sidelined with a calf problem, is safe and returned to Manchester unharmed.

The Citation CJ2 left the runway as planned at 6.07 but had to come to a stop on the grass before it could take off.

Watch: Pellegrini talks about Willy Caballero and gives Kompany update

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There were four others on board, including representatives of Kompany. No one was hurt in the incident.

A Centreline Air statement said: "Centreline Air Charter can confirm that at 18:07 (Saturday 9 Jan 16) one of its aircraft, a Citation CJ2, left the runway during the take-off roll and came to a stop on the grass.

"The flight was a private charter with five persons on board. No-one was injured in the incident. The cause of the incident is not yet known and the first priority was ensuring the wellbeing of the occupants of the aircraft.

"The airport was closed immediately to fixed wing traffic until the aircraft had been removed when it reopened to fixed wing traffic at 9.58pm yesterday evening. The Air Accident Investigation Branch has been informed, which is standard practice.

"It is planned that the aircraft will be flown to Centreline Air Charter's Bristol Airport base on Tuesday, at which point investigations into the cause of the incident will continue."

All emergency services in the Norfolk area have confirmed they were not called into action to deal with the incident.

The airport reopened at 9:58pm.

The incident delayed the return of the City staff and squad who were travelling home after beating Norwich 3-0 at Carrow Road.