FLIGHTS carrying holidaymakers to northern Spain on Saturday morning were forced to divert after a sounder of wild boars ran onto the runway.
A Coruña Airport in north-western Spain was temporarily closed after the animals breached the runway’s perimeter, forcing a handful of flights to land at other airports.
Two incoming arrivals from Madrid and Milan were diverted to Santiago de Compostela, around 70km further south.
Two outbound flights to the Spanish capital and Barcelona respectively were also delayed until officials expelled the boars from the airport.
In total, the landing strip was out-of-action for around two hours, with the airport re-opening at 11am local time.
The two diverted flights later took off again and landed in A Coruña.
Spain’s out-of-control wild boar population recently hit the headlines after an African swine fever outbreak in Catalunya threatened to derail Spain’s multi-billion-euro pork industry.
Several countries placed restrictions on the import of Spanish pork after dozens of cases linked to a nearby high-tech laboratory were identified.
African swine fever is harmless to humans but potentially fatal to pigs, with warnings that up to 30,000 animals may have needed to have been culled to halt the spread of the virus.
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