More than 100 passengers heading for Bermuda yesterday underwent the ordeal of an emergency landing after the high frequency radios in their plane failed, The Royal Gazette can reveal.

The Continental jet was an hour into the flight to the Island from Newark, New Jersey, when the captain told the 137 passengers that both high frequency radios on the plane had failed and that he would have to return because it was an emergency situation. The pilot then had to use a back-up radio to contact Continental staff at Newark, who relayed the information to air traffic control, which allowed them to help navigate the Boeing 737 through New York's busy airspace shortly after 1 p.m. and safely down to Newark.

The emergency landing could have been even more tricky, as Newark was shut down completely for 35 minutes at lunchtime yesterday because of a fire at a construction site at the airport. Continental spokesman at Newark Bob McHugh told The Royal Gazette last night that the airport was open and did not affect the emergency landing. He said the situation was serious, but there were no reports of panic onboard the jet.

The flight resumed at 5.30 p.m., five and a half hours late, after the radio was repaired and Continental found a new crew. It was due in to Bermuda at 9.45 p.m.

Mr. McHugh told The Royal Gazette last night : "The aircraft lost both high frequency radios, which are the principle radios for communicating with air traffic control.

"They can communicate with our operating system and we can relay it to air traffic control. They were not flying blind, but it was a serious situation to lose both radios and the pilot, at his discretion, did declare an emergency. They turned around and landed at Newark without incident."

When asked if there had been any panic onboard the flight, he said: "I have no reports of that. It is standard procedure for the captain to go on the aircraft public announcement system to address what is going on, but there would be no tangible impact on the passengers except inconvenience. It was a technical emergency. The pilot was given air priority over New York airspace that he would not otherwise have had.

"They remained on the air traffic control radar system in connection to aircraft. It's not as if the flight was not visible to air traffic control, it is just that we had to build an alternative to talk to air traffic control - through us."