But US Air Force confirmed that it landed at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk

It's unclear why QID72 plane declared an emergency last Wednesday

A US Air Force refuelling aircraft suffered an in-flight emergency over the English Channel - but has since landed safely in Britain.

The Boeing KC-135R Stratotanker left France at 0.05am local time last Wednesday (11.05pm BST) and was last reported on a flight tracking website between Dover and Calais 15 minutes later.

It is not yet known why the plane - flying from Amiens under the code QID72 and based at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk - disappeared from the flight tracking software at 0.20am.

Refuelling aircraft: The Boeing KC-135R Stratotanker (file picture) left Amiens in northern France overnight - but it has since landed safely

Despite the confusion the jet landed safely at its base in East Anglia an hour later, the US Air Force confirmed.

A spokesman said the aircraft experienced an in-flight emergency over the Channel. But he said officials were investigating what happened.

Phil Derner, the founder of aviation enthusiast website NYCAviation.com and a flight dispatcher for a US airline, said the Stratotanker never fell of the air traffic control radar.

He added that the plane was being followed on flight tracking software via a filed flight plan – which, for the purposes of tracking, simply contains the flight number with a departure and a destination.

Mr Derner told MailOnline: ‘When an aircraft decides to divert for any reason - operationally or emergency - the flight plan changes, since the aircraft is not flying to where they filed, making it disappear from civilian tracking software.

‘This is what happened to that KC-135. Their filed plan changed due to diversion, so it no longer showed on civilian trackers. But it never disappeared from any radar.’

Route: The plane departed Amiens at 0.05am local time and was last reported on flight tracking websites between Dover and Calais 15 minutes later (above)

The US Air Force has been using Boeing KC-135R aircraft since the 1950s and they were initially purchased to support the bombers of the Strategic Air Command.

In 2013 three US airmen were killed when their military refuelling tanker military tanker crashed in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan.

Safety is paramount to the success of our mission US Air Force

Accident investigators found a malfunction in the aircraft's control system caused the fatal crash.

A spokesman for the US Air Force said: 'The in-flight emergency was associated with a flight control-related malfunction; however, the crew and aircraft were never in jeopardy and they safely returned to home station.

'We continuously train to high standards and have established flight manual procedures in place to deal with emergencies of this nature.