A judge has allowed about 70 passengers aboard a plane which crashed on landing to sue Thomson Holidays for the psychological trauma received.

The Britannia Airways Boeing 757 - carrying 236 passengers from Cardiff - came down in bad weather on arrival at Gerona in Spain and broke into three pieces.No-one was killed in the accident and several passengers received compensation for physical injuries they received but Judge Graham Jones has now ruled that Thomson is liable to compensate passengers for psychological distress caused.

Thomson's lawyers had argued it was an implied condition that the company was covered by the Warsaw Convention of 1929 which limits compensation in such cases to physical injury only. However, Judge Jones ruled that the company was liable because its conditions of business did not clearly state the limit of its liability for such injuries.

Thomson said it regretted the courts finding and it was confident that it will be established that the actions of the Britannia crew demonstrated nothing other than the highest level of professionalism in difficult conditions and that they were in no way negligent towards their passengers.Specialists in aviation law believe the judgement could result in passengers sueing for distress caused by a heavy landing or an in-flight crisis of some sort.

An investigation cleared the aircraft's pilot of blame and the passengers are not taking action against the airline.