Canary Islands plane crash false alarm as emergency services mistake ship for aircraft

Emergency services in the Canary Islands were left with red faces on Thursday after mistaking a shipping vessel in the sea for a crashed plane.

Services announced that a plane had landed in the water two miles off the coast of Gran Canaria just after 3pm.

But in fact it was a tug boat carrying a large object that at a distance resembled an aircraft's fuselage, reports the BBC.

Journalist Idafe Martin Perez retweeted a pic of the scene:

According to the Metro, a spokeswoman for the Canary Island emergency services told news agency Reuters: "It's not an airplane, it's a big tugboat pulling a ship."

While there was obvious relief at the fact the plane crash turned out to be a false alarm, some people took to Twitter to make light of the situation - and give the area's emergency services a little ribbing.

According to theDaily Mail, Sky News presenter Kay Burley tweeted: "Canary Islands emergency services mistook a ship for a crashed airliner... #ShouldHaveGoneToSpecSavers."

In a strange twist, the false alarm came on the 37th anniversary of the deadliest aviation crash in history, which occurred in Tenerife.

A total of 583 people were killed when two Boeing 747 passenger planes crashed on the runway at Tenerife airport on 27 March, 1977.

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