MYSTERY surrounds why a plane with just one set of landing gear deployed has been circling Southampton airspace for hours.

Readers have spotted the aircraft circling an area near Southampton Airport since this morning.

Colin Evans, who is carrying out work at Colden Common Primary School in Eastleigh, said the plane has flown over him around a dozen times since 9am today, appearing once every half an hour.

He said: “The left hand back wheel is not down at all.

“It's about 300ft in the sky.”

However Southampton Airport said it the aircraft was not scheduled to land at the airport while a spokesman for the Swanwick-based air traffic management provider NATS said it has no record of a flight matching the description on its radar.

Experts at NATS viewed footage of the plane and said it was aircraft on a normal final approach into the airport.

A plane with the gear only half down would have prompted a full emergency at the airport, NATS said, but there has been no full emergency at the airport today.

NATS added there had been no reports of an aircraft suffering technical difficulties today.