THE boss of Scotland's new national rail operator was among the passengers caught up in a mid-air emergency when his flight to Scotland suffered technical problems.

Jeff Hoogesteger, chief executive officer for Abellio Group, was on his way from Amsterdam on Tuesday to speak at a transport conference in Edinburgh when the plane was forced to turn back.

The KLM flight KL1277 had suffered an engine fault, but the airline said there was no need to make an emergency landing in the UK as the problem was not a safety threat.

It was over the North Sea, east of Lincoln, when the decision was made to turn the Boeing 737 around and head back to Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands, where it landed safely at 8.15am.

Mr Hoogesteger travelled on to Edinburgh on a later flight, finally arriving at the second annual Scottish Transport Conference in the afternoon.

He had originally been scheduled to deliver a talk at 10.35am.

Abellio took over the running of the ScotRail franchise from First Group on April 1.

A spokeswoman for KLM said: "The aircraft suffered an engine failure and had to turn back to Schiphol. The safety of the passengers and crew was not at stake. Passengers went on to their destination on another aircraft."