Irish fans told to accept flight or make their own way

Thirty-nine Irish football fans tonight face making their own way home from their trip to see Ireland's soccer match with Cyprus.

The fans were stranded in Larnaca early this morning after refusing to board a Helios Airways flight over safety fears.

They were due to fly home last night via a connecting flight from Glasgow but the Boeing 737 plane turned back after 20 minutes in the air with technical difficulties.

John Condren from Sligo, said there were "people fainting and getting sick" from the heat aboard the aircraft. The airline told them there was a problem with the air conditioning.

Helios rescheduled the flight for early this morning but most of the 153 passengers refused to board, Mr Condren told RTE radio. "There's people here, myself included, terrified to get on that flight," he said.

The low-cost airline is the subject of increased speculation about the safety of its fleet after one of its 737s crashed into a hillside north of Athens on August 14th, killing all 121 people on board.

The airline grounded all three of its planes pending examinations by independent experts in Sweden after another incident a few days later in Britain.

The company has hired an Airbus plane from a charter company which is due to take off this evening. But the fans have are so far refusing to board the plane scheduled to take off at 8pm.

Sean Kenna from Mayo told RTE Radio that passengers had been advised at their hotel by fax that Helios would not assist in arrangements for their return if they fail to board this evening's flight.

The aircraft they were originally travelling on was forced to return to Larnaca last night after a problem with a valve distributing air through an engine was detected. The same problem led to the same plane on a London-bound flight return to Cyprus on Friday after 55 minutes.

Nicos Anastassiades, Helios' marketing and sales manager, said the fault was not dangerous and said that the flights could have continued without problems. But he stated, "Safety was, is and will continue to be our first and only priority."

The Cyprus Transport Ministry however, grounded the aircraft indefinitely and announced that it would carry out checks into the operations of Helios' engineering department.