An Alitalia flight headed to New York from Rome was forced to turn back after an hour in the air because of a decision by US authorities to again close their airspace, the airline said.
Flight AZ610, which took off from Rome at 6.05 p.m. Irish time was expected to touch down again at the Italian capital's airport later tonight, Alitalia said in a statement.
It added that the US Federal Aviation Authority had closed its airspace to such flights until 7 p.m. Irish time tomorrow.
All flights to, from and through the United States have been cancelled or diverted since Tuesday, when hijackers comandeered four domestic passenger aircraft, steering two of them into New York's World Trade Center, destroying it, and one into the Pentagon in Washington.
A fourth aircraft crashed in Pennsylvania.
AFP