The Irish transport minister has asked to be kept informed about investigations into a series of recent high-speed approach incidents involving Ryanair aircraft, and has not ruled out the possibility of a formal Government review of the carrier.

The airline has been involved in several high-speed and unstable approaches over the last couple of years, including an unstable low approach to Cork in June last year, an unstable high-speed approach to Knock three months earlier, and a high-speed landing at Stockholm Skavsta in July 2005.

Responding to these concerns, the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) urged the Irish Government to launch an investigation. “We and others have researched Ryanair and seen just how pressured the schedules are, how tight the turnaround times, and how there appears to be a corporate culture that does not make safety its first and overriding priority,” says ITF civil aviation secretary Ingo Marowsky.

“These anomalous approaches aren’t a result of professional pilots suddenly turning into mad acrobatic stuntmen, they’re the result of flight crews being made to work too close to the edge of what is humanly possible.”