A bird strike forced a pilot to shut down a plane's engine during a flight.

The Eastern Airways aircraft was carrying 17 passengers from Aberdeen to Shetland when the incident occurred on Wednesday morning.

The Jetstream 41 was forced to turn back shortly after take-off and landed safely at around 10.45am.

An Eastern Airways spokeswoman said: "As a precautionary measure, the captain decided to shut down the affected engine following a bird strike.

"The aircraft landed safely at Aberdeen at 10.45am and passengers disembarked the aircraft as normal via the aircraft steps."

Engineers are inspecting the aircraft, they added.