A plane ground to a halt at the end of the Manchester Airport runway on Wednesday night when two of its tyres blew out after it landed.

None of the 169 passengers on board the Airtours Airbus A321, flying in from Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands, were injured in the incident.

A Manchester Airport spokesman said there had been no previous sign of problems with the plane.

He said the plane did not crash land but came to a normal halt after the blow out.

"There was no indication of any problems on landing, but as the plane reached the end of the runway two of its tyres burst," the spokesman said.

Staff then swung into action to get the passengers off the aircraft.

"Airport staff were able to take steps up to the craft to get everybody off, they did not have to come down emergency shoots or anything like that," the spokesman said.

The airport was not placed in a state of full-scale alert at any time but the stranded plane remained at the end of the runway for over an hour forcing 12 flights due to land at Manchester to be diverted to Leeds, Liverpool and Birmingham Airports.

The Airtours Airbus will remain at Manchester for repairs.

A spokesman for Airtours International stressed that none of the 169 passengers or crew was in danger in the incident.

He claimed that just one tyre burst when the plane touched down.

He added: "The pilots are highly trained to deal with these situations. The aircraft came to a stop, the passengers disembarked using the steps in the normal way and were brought back to the terminal."

Engineers are looking at what caused the tyre to burst.

The plane was Airtours' last of the night destined for Manchester. The company said flights would continue as normal on Thursday.