A PASSENGER experienced 'one of the worst flights of his life' during Storm Isha.

Steve Nichols, 63, was on board a Ryanair flight to Bournemouth Airport from Gran Canaria on Sunday night, January 21.

A frequent flyer from Bournemouth, he escaped to the sunny Spanish island to avoid the January blues.

However, Steve's flight home hit Storm Isha as the plane came in to land.

Read more: Storm Isha set to hit Dorset with amber warning issued 

He said: "It was pretty horrendous. As we were coming in, the cloud base was so low you couldn't see the ground.

"After the pilot announced 10 minutes to landing, it became a roller coaster, we were buffeting around and you could see other passengers getting anxious and holding onto the seats in front."

Despite worries of delays, Steve was impressed the flight took off to begin with, convinced he would be stranded in France or somewhere else afar.

However, leaving only 10 minutes late among several cancellations, the plane arrived in Bournemouth during the peak of the storm at 10.40pm.

Steve said: "At one stage I thought we were going to go back up and go round, but fair play to the pilot as he came right in and landed okay.

"He did have to fight against the wind and had to put the reverse thrust on heavily, but I'm just glad he got us home."

Storm Isha swept through Bournemouth on Sunday night with gusts reaching around 60mph.

An amber weather warning was issued for Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole from 6pm on Sunday until 6am on Monday, January 22.

Despite the bumpy flight, Steve was left impressed by how the pilot and crew handled the situation.

He said: "I would like to congratulate the pilot because as all the passengers could see it was difficult for him to fight the weather.

"Once we landed, a team member said 'welcome to Bournemouth, the weather is completely different to Gran Canaria' so it was all taken in good jest.

"We all clapped once we landed and even the ground crew were great, greeting us at the doors. I think they were impressed we got down."