A jet owned and flown by Hollywood star John Travolta was grounded at Shannon airport on Monday night after it developed a technical problem while travelling back to the United States.
Travolta and his entourage were returning to Newark in New Jersey from Munich International Airport after he appeared on a German television programme at the weekend.
The actor's Boeing 707-138, which he flies himself, arrived at Shannon late on Monday night on a scheduled refuelling stop but was grounded after a problem developed with one of the engines.
Shortly before Travolta was due to take off, engineers were called in to assess the problem but decided that the jet would have to remain at Shannon until the difficulty could be rectified. The aircraft is expected to stay at Shannon until late this evening at the earliest.
Travolta continued his journey back to the US on a private jet early yesterday morning.
Travolta (53) makes at least one trip a year to Ireland and makes regular refuelling stops at Shannon.
He earned his wings in 1974 and owns a Gulfstream II jet and three other aircraft. He is usually accompanied on his transoceanic flights by two other captains and an engineer.
Travolta purchased the jet from the Qantas airline eight years ago and has acted as an ambassador for Qantas for several years. He infuriated environmentalists recently by flying his jet to the London premiere of his new film Wild Hogs.
He has urged people to "do their bit" to tackle global warming but environmentalists reckon he has clocked up at least 48,000km flying over the past 12 months, an estimated 800 tonnes of carbon emissions.