A 165-mile journey over the Irish Sea turned into a 2.5-hour flight to nowhere when a storm stopped the plane from landing

• Storm Bram brought high winds to the UK and Ireland on Tuesday, causing flight chaos.
• Passengers on a Ryanair flight from Manchester to Dublin were expecting a 40-minute journey.
• Instead, it had two failed landing attempts before turning back after a two-and-a-half-hour flight.

Passengers expecting a quick hop across the Irish Sea instead faced a flight to nowhere.

Ryanair Flight 555 departed Manchester, in northern England, on Tuesday afternoon and was supposed to land in Dublin about 40 minutes later.

The two cities are only about 160 miles apart, as the crow flies.

However, as the Boeing 737 approached the Irish capital, it circled off the coast a few times before coming in for its first landing attempt.

The plane was unable to touch down and instead headed back out to sea, entering another holding pattern.

Storm Bram caused widespread disruption in Ireland and the UK on Tuesday. Yellow wind warnings were in place across the whole of Ireland. At one point, wind gusts in Dublin reached 50 knots, or about 57 mph. Some 25,000 buildings in the country were left without power.

Two hours after leaving Manchester, the pilots made a second landing attempt but were again unable to bring the plane down.

Instead, they decided to head back across the Irish Sea, diverting to Manchester.

The plane landed there around 5:30 p.m. — nearly two and a half hours after it had taken off.

"Storm Bram is continuing to have a significant impact on flights at Dublin Airport today," the airport said in a Tuesday X post.

It added that nearly 100 flights had been canceled as of 4 p.m., while about 10 had been diverted.

"Challenging wind conditions have meant some aircraft have been unable to land and take off at Dublin Airport for extended periods this afternoon."

Operations largely returned to normal the following day, with the airport calling Tuesday "a day of significant disruption."

Ryanair didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.