A woman accused of trying to open a door of a plane mid-flight from Stansted to Turkey wept as she pleaded guilty to endangering the safety of an aircraft.

Chloe Haines, of High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, admitted the charge, as well as assaulting a member of the Jet2 flight's cabin crew during the journey on June 22 this year.

Two RAF fighter jets were scrambled to meet the Dalaman-bound plane and divert it back to Stansted, where Haines was arrested upon landing by Essex Police.

The 26-year-old denied a charge of drunkenness on an aircraft but has now been bailed to return to Chelmsford Crown Court on January 24, where she has been told by Judge Charles Gratwicke that "all sentencing options remain open".

She has also been barred from travel from any UK airport as part of her bail conditions.

Haines, who wore a long black coat and had her blonde hair down to her shoulders, wept throughout the hearing on Monday, December 23.

Barrister Oliver Saxby, for Haines, said there was "no question that she was drunk" but that the charge of endangering the safety of an aircraft was the "more serious alternative".

He added: "On any analysis, she's a troubled young person with a number of serious issues.

"Seventeen days before this incident, she had been sentenced to a community order for not dissimilar offences, not committed in the air but with alcohol and a loss of control.

"That order had not had a chance to bite."

He said that she had "to her credit engaged more fully with Alcoholics Anonymous".

Mr Saxby asked for a pre-sentence report to be prepared about the defendant, to give judge "more information on her current situation, this offence having happened some six months or so ago".