A Dublin-bound Flybe flight had to turn back to England on Friday after a bee became lodged in one of the plane’s instruments.

The appropriately-named flight BE384 was travelling from Southampton to Dublin when it hit insect trouble.

A spokeswoman said: "Flybe can confirm that flight BE384 travelling to Dublin returned from airborne to Southampton following a suspected technical issue.

"The aircraft landed without incident and all passengers disembarked as normal.

"Upon inspection, Flybe engineers did discover that the cause of the issue was a bee that had become lodged in an item of instrumentation on the outside of the aircraft.

"The safety of its passengers and crew is the airline's number one priority and Flybe regrets any inconvenience experienced as a result of the delay to this flight."

A passenger who was on the flight has said that it was unlike anything he had ever experienced before.

Noel Rooney told RTÉ's News At One that 15 minutes into the flight they were told, by the pilot, that there was a problem with the navigation system and that he would have to return to Southampton for it to be fixed.

He said that when the plane was inspected and passengers were told that a bumblebee had got stuck in the wind-speed measuring instrument, passengers were light-hearted about it.

He said that passengers sat for 40 minutes while officials extricated the remains of the bumblebee from the plane's instruments.