The pilot of one of the planes had to perform an emergency stop

A holiday jet carrying 220 passengers was forced to abort its take-off when another plane crossed the airport runway on Sunday.

The My Travel jet had reached 120 mph when the pilot decided to make an emergency stop.

Air accident investigators say the incident was "serious" and are checking instructions from air traffic control.

The pilots of both aircraft appear to have been acting in accordance with air traffic instructions.

Delay while brakes checked

My Travel said its plane - an Airbus A321 - had been given clearance to take off.

Investigators say the other plane, belonging to Ryanair, had also been given clearance to cross the runway.

The Ryanair plane, a Boeing 737, had just landed from Dublin and was crossing the runway to reach the terminal.

The My Travel pilot was accelerating when he saw the other plane and took the decision to abort take-off.

The My Travel aircraft finally got away 90 minutes later after engineers carried out safety checks and tested its brakes.

Nobody was injured in the incident, which took place at 1030 GMT on Sunday.

A spokesman for the Air Accident Investigation Branch confirmed it was investigating the incident.

He refused to give any details about how close the two planes came to colliding or whether the incident was being classified as a "near-miss".

A spokesman for National Air Traffic Services said: "We will not know exactly what happened until the AAIB investigation is complete, so it would not be appropriate to comment."