Len McCluskey has announced he will step down next April as leader of the UK's biggest trade union Unite, but stand immediately for re-election.

The decision means he will step down a year early, but if re-elected he could be in post for a further five years until 2022.
Mr McCluskey said he wanted a show of support from Unite members to vindicate his leadership of the union.
He said: "I intend to submit my record to the vote of Unite members."
Unite's executive council has agreed that his resignation will take effect from 28 April, when the elections for general secretary and the executive council finish.
Mr McCluskey said: "I will remain general secretary until then - after that it is in the hands of the membership."
Unite said the decision would save money: "This will ensure the ballot for executive council members and the ballot for general secretary are conducted simultaneously, minimising the enormous costs caused to the union by the legal requirement to conduct the ballot by post and not by modern voting methods, thereby saving the union in the region of Â£1m," the union said.
"Following a period of candidate nominations, the ballot for both elections will commence on 27 March 2017, concluding on 28 April 2017."
Mr McCluskey has been the leader of Unite's 1.4 million members since he was first elected in 2010.
His plan could also influence the future of the Labour Party, where he has been a leading supporter of its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and his anti-austerity politics.
Unite is Labour's biggest doner and provided Mr Corbyn's leadership campaign with cash, manpower and office space for phone bank volunteers.
Len McCluskey's move is a gamble.
He has been a strong supporter of Jeremy Corbyn but some within this industrial union have been concerned by Mr Corbyn's plans to ban fracking, and also by his lukewarm support for new nuclear power.
His equivocal position on renewing the nuclear deterent Trident - as a lifelong anti-nuclear weapons campaigner - has also troubled many who work in the defence sector.
Unite says holding the election for general secretary a year early, at the same time as its internal executive council elections, will save the union up to Â£1m.
But with turnouts in union leader elections traditionally very low, Mr McCluskey's future now hangs on whether union activists will back him for a third time.


Scotland fly-half Ruaridh Jackson has left Harlequins to return to Glasgow Warriors on a one-year contract.

The 29-year-old made 19 appearances for the London club, scoring 78 points.
He had signed from English Premiership rivals Wasps last summer.
Harlequins director of rugby John Kingston said: "The approach from Scotland and Glasgow Warriors was a golden opportunity for Ruaridh to further his international career following the recent summer tour."
Jackson, who earned his 31st cap as Scotland lost to Fiji in June, was with Warriors for six seasons before moving to Wasps.
He rejoins Glasgow as Dave Rennie prepares to take charge of the Pro14 club following Gregor Townsend's step up to become Scotland coach.
Jackson, whose side finished sixth in the English top flight, said: "I have had a great experience playing in the Aviva Premiership for the last few years with two great clubs in Harlequins and Wasps.
"The move back to Glasgow is a great chance for me to head back to play in a revamped Pro14 league.
"It is a step into both the known and the unknown, but I'm really excited for the challenge ahead.
"Playing in England has been a good experience and one that has made me a better and more rounded player.
"I still see myself as a 10, but I'm happy to play either there or at full-back."
Glasgow Warriors assistant coach Jason O'Halloran is looking forward to working with Jackson.
"Ruaridh is an experienced player who will add to the competition we have within our squad," he said.
"He knows the club well from his previous time here and can play in a number of positions in the backline."


Sauber driver Pascal Wehrlein will miss the first Formula 1 pre-season test because of a back injury sustained in a crash last month.

The 22-year-old German, who raced for the now-defunct Manor team in 2016, rolled his car after a collision with Williams driver Felipe Massa at the Race of Champions in Miami.
The first pre-season test is in Barcelona from 27 February to 2 March.
"I feel sorry for the team but we'll come back stronger," said Wehrlein.
Ferrari's third driver Antonio Giovinazzi, 23, is tipped to replace Wehrlein and partner Marcus Ericsson in Barcelona.
Wehrlein joined Sauber in January and the first race of the 2017 season, the Australian Grand Prix, will be held on 26 March.


The UK's "gig economy", powered by self-employment and casual work, is starting to hit government revenues.

Wednesday's Autumn Statement for the first time showed how it is cutting into the government tax take.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) estimates that in 2020/21 it will cost the Treasury £3.5bn.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond said he would find more effective ways to tax workers in the shifting labour environment.
"Technological progress is changing the way people live, and the way they work," he said. "The tax system needs to keep pace."
But the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self Employed (IPSE) said the government is ignoring the importance of the self-employed sector.
Andy Chamberlain, deputy director of policy at IPSE, said: "The chancellor boasted about record low unemployment, scoring political points, but failed to mention that the huge rise in self-employment is the main thing that allows him to make that claim."
MPs Frank Field and Andrew Forsey, in their report Wild West Work, published in September, said that out of those 2.6 million people who have found a new job since 2010, more than a third have been classed as self-employed.
Mr Hammond also said that he could claw back some £630m over the next five years from self-employed workers who are not paying tax on so-called "disguised earnings", payments made as, for example, a loan or a payment in kind.
Mr Chamberlain said he "wholeheartedly supported" any measure to stop any scheme deliberately designed to avoid paying tax.
But he added: "The loss in tax revenue for the government is not because self-employed workers are paying much less. The real differential is because the employer is no longer paying National Insurance Contributions (NIC).
"If you employ someone for £100,000, you pay the taxman about £13,000 in NIC. If you pay a self-employed person the same amount, the government loses that tax revenue."
What the Autumn Statement means for you
Ministers back Autumn Statement forecasts
UK economy 'resilient' despite £122bn hit
Key points at-a-glance
Your questions answered
Mr Hammond also said the government was losing revenue from "incorporation", the process by which individuals form a company, often with themselves as the only employee, to pay less tax.
By doing so, instead of just taking a salary and paying income tax, they can also get much of their earnings as dividends from their corporate profits.
Even though the tax on dividends has risen, for most people it is still lower than income tax.
And for the Treasury that means less tax revenue.
The chancellor said in the Autumn Statement he would "consult in due course on any proposed changes".
Mr Chamberlain said: "The reason self-employed workers become incorporated is not just to do with tax. It's also to do with the security of having limited liability.
"And clients often insist upon it if they want to have a business-to-business relationship. This whole area of work is changing faster than the government can keep up with.
"For instance the ruling on the Uber drivers last month that established that they were workers, employed by Uber, gives them some statutory rights. But it doesn't effect their tax status, which is still one of self-employed."
Mr Chamberlain added: "The government is now beginning to wonder if it really has the systems in place to capture all the different ways of working."


Local government elections are always a good indicator of how voters are feeling, but with Lancashire being home to more than a handful of marginal Parliamentary seats, national party leaders will be keeping a close eye on the results when they come in on 5 May.

Labour held power at Lancashire County Council for 28 years until the Conservatives ended that streak in the 2009 elections.
Four years later, Labour were running the authority again, but without a majority. Instead, Jennifer Mein's Labour group have been reliant on Bill Winlow's Liberal Democrats for support.
Currently, the council breaks into 39 Labour councillors, 35 Tories, six Lib Dems, three independents and one Green.
Speaking to candidates from the two biggest parties, it seems neither are certain about winning a majority.
Both will be hoping for victories in the 4 May election in key battlegrounds like Pendle, but could the Liberal Democrats see a resurgence in an area where they've traditionally been highly successful?
One councillor told me Brexit could be a key issue for much of the county and Paula Keaveney, a lecturer in politics at Edge Hill University, agrees.
"People tend to use local elections as a proxy for national issues," she said.
"If there's dissatisfaction with a particular party at the time, they get punished at local elections. Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May have an effect on the result."
Brexit is one issue which UKIP will hope to capitalise on. They say they'll be fielding candidates in most parts of Lancashire and are hoping to gain their first ever county council representative.
There is also the longstanding debate over fracking, which could mean the Green Party can increase its presence at County Hall.
The party will no doubt be hoping for gains in north Lancashire, where they currently hold eight seats on Lancaster City Council.
Geoff Driver's Conservatives will argue the Labour group have made harsh cuts to services over the past four years, but Labour blame the Tory government for a reduction in their budget.
How these arguments will play out at the ballot box is hard to tell.
Ms Keaveney said the county has "this marginality which other areas don't have [so] it's definitely one of the top ones in the country to watch".
It seems, whatever the results, Lancashire politics will remain under a national microscope.


Police patrols are being carried out on islands off Poole Harbour to protect eggs from protected bird species after hundreds were stolen last year.

Eggs from black-headed and Mediterranean gulls in most of the 9,000 nests on the harbour's remote islands were taken in May 2016.
Charity Birds of Poole Harbour said the eggs -  considered a delicacy - were likely to used by  restaurants.
The nesting gulls are being monitored by Dorset Police's marine unit.
The force said the birds would be checked day and night by officers through the breeding season.
Joel Brooks, of the force, said: "The collection of birds eggs is illegal unless licensed and no one is licensed to collect in Dorset.
"We have wildlife officers from the Metropolitan Police in London making enquiries and checks on the establishments likely to be buying and selling the eggs."
Birds of Poole Harbour said there are around 20 "pickers", operating under licenses issued by Natural England, which allows black-headed gull eggs to be collected legally at five sites in England.
Restaurants or pubs have to be shown a valid licence before buying eggs to prepare in meals.
Paul Morton, who runs the charity, said: "It's been proven black-headed gull eggs are safe to eat - but there has never been a test done by Defra on Mediterranean gull eggs to confirm these are safe for human consumption."
The charity said it planned to survey the islands again later in the spring to see what effect last year's thefts has had on the population of the two species of gulls.


Striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was dropped by Borussia Dortmund, who beat Sporting Lisbon to reach the last 16 of the Champions League.

Dortmund boss Thomas Tuchel said the 27-year-old was left out for "internal reasons".
Tuchel said "the matter is now settled" and Gabon forward Aubameyang will return to the side for Saturday's Bundesliga trip to Hamburg.
His replacement Adrian Ramos scored the only goal against Sporting.
Former Hertha Berlin striker Ramos rose to meet Matthias Ginter's cross and looped a header into the corner of the net.
Aubameyang, dressed in a black coat, scarf and fedora hat, watched the match from the stands.
Match ends, Borussia Dortmund 1, Sporting Lisbon 0.
Second Half ends, Borussia Dortmund 1, Sporting Lisbon 0.
Sebastian Rode (Borussia Dortmund) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Sebastián Coates (Sporting Lisbon).
Offside, Sporting Lisbon. Adrien Silva tries a through ball, but Gelson Martins is caught offside.
Offside, Borussia Dortmund. Adrián Ramos tries a through ball, but Lukasz Piszczek is caught offside.
Delay over. They are ready to continue.
Delay in match Ezequiel Schelotto (Sporting Lisbon) because of an injury.
Julian Weigl (Borussia Dortmund) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Adrien Silva (Sporting Lisbon).
Julian Weigl (Borussia Dortmund) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Adrien Silva (Sporting Lisbon).
Foul by Raphael Guerreiro (Borussia Dortmund).
Gelson Martins (Sporting Lisbon) wins a free kick on the right wing.
Substitution, Sporting Lisbon. Lazar Markovic replaces Bryan Ruiz.
Attempt missed. Bryan Ruiz (Sporting Lisbon) header from the left side of the six yard box is just a bit too high. Assisted by Ezequiel Schelotto with a cross.
Attempt missed. Sokratis (Borussia Dortmund) header from the centre of the box is too high. Assisted by Marc Bartra with a headed pass following a corner.
Corner,  Borussia Dortmund. Conceded by Rui Patrício.
Attempt saved. André Schürrle (Borussia Dortmund) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the bottom right corner.
Marvin Zeegelaar (Sporting Lisbon) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Lukasz Piszczek (Borussia Dortmund) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Marvin Zeegelaar (Sporting Lisbon).
Christian Pulisic (Borussia Dortmund) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Rúben Semedo (Sporting Lisbon).
Attempt missed. Adrien Silva (Sporting Lisbon) right footed shot from outside the box is too high. Assisted by Bryan Ruiz.
Adrián Ramos (Borussia Dortmund) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Sebastián Coates (Sporting Lisbon).
Substitution, Borussia Dortmund. Sebastian Rode replaces Mario Götze.
Substitution, Borussia Dortmund. Lukasz Piszczek replaces Gonzalo Castro.
Attempt missed. Adrien Silva (Sporting Lisbon) right footed shot from outside the box is just a bit too high from a direct free kick.
Raphael Guerreiro (Borussia Dortmund) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Foul by Raphael Guerreiro (Borussia Dortmund).
Adrien Silva (Sporting Lisbon) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Raphael Guerreiro (Borussia Dortmund).
Gelson Martins (Sporting Lisbon) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Attempt saved. Raphael Guerreiro (Borussia Dortmund) left footed shot from outside the box is saved in the bottom left corner.
Adrián Ramos (Borussia Dortmund) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Sebastián Coates (Sporting Lisbon).
Gonzalo Castro (Borussia Dortmund) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Adrien Silva (Sporting Lisbon).


Astronomers have confirmed the existence of planets that have had their atmospheres stripped away by their host stars.

Planets with atmospheres that orbit too close to their host stars are bombarded by a torrent of high-energy radiation.
The gaseous outer layers of these worlds are then stripped away, according to the international team of scientists.
Their work appears in the journal Nature Communications.
The researchers used data from Nasa's Kepler space telescope, which was launched to identify and study exoplanets, which circle stars other than our own.
They focused on a category of planet called "super Earths", which are roughly 2-10 times more massive than our own planet.
Co-author Dr Guy Davies, from the University of Birmingham, said: "For these planets it is like standing next to a hairdryer turned up to its hottest setting.
"There has been much theoretical speculation that such planets might be stripped of their atmospheres. We now have the observational evidence to confirm this, which removes any lingering doubts over the theory."
The astronomers used a technique called asteroseismology, which probes the internal structure of stars, to confirm the idea.
By characterising the host star, the team was able to also determine the precise sizes of the exoplanets around them.
The results of the study have important implications for understanding how stellar systems, like our own Solar System, and their planets, evolved over time - including the role played by the host star.
Dr Davies added: "Our results show that planets of a certain size that lie close to their stars are likely to have been much larger at the beginning of their lives. Those planets will have looked very different."


Defending champion Laura Trott leads the Olympic women's omnium at halfway after a masterful display on Monday.

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The 24-year-old is three races away from claiming a fourth Olympic gold medal, 48 hours after she became the  first British woman to win three.
Trott finished second in the scratch race, won the individual pursuit and then easily won the elimination race.
She holds an eight-point advantage over Jolien D'Hoore of Belgium, with American Sarah Hammer in third place.
Trott won three of the six events to take the title in 2012 and, if anything, looks even stronger four years on.
Tatsiana Sharakova of Belarus comfortably won the opening scratch race of the competition, with Trott holding off RideLondon Classique winner Kirsten Wild of the Netherlands to finish second.
In the individual pursuit, Trott took nearly five seconds off of her time from London 2012 to leave her rivals trailing.
She clocked three minutes 25.054 seconds to thrash Sharakova by more than 12 seconds - lapping her with 1km to go - and beat pursuit specialist Hammer, who was the silver medallist in London, by more than a second.
In the elimination race - where one rider is lost every two laps - Trott looked serene, never in danger while Hammer struggled to live with the pace.
Hammer was eventually third, leaving Trott to blow D'Hoore away on the final sprint, even having time to wave to the crowd on the home straight.
The Briton. who is engaged to five-time gold medallist Jason Kenny, will return to the velodrome on Tuesday for the time trial, flying lap and points race.
Earlier, fellow Briton Mark Cavendish took silver in the men's omnium.
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Both Team GB entrants in the women's sprint reached the quarter-finals as Becky James and Katy Marchant won their respective heats.
James, 24, edged Virginie Cueff of France on the home straight before Marchant, 23, overcame German Miriam Welte.
On Tuesday (14:00 BST), James, who has already won silver in the women's keirin, will face China's Zhong Tianshi.
Marchant faces Lithuanian Simona Krupeckaite for a place in the semi-finals.
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A man has appeared in court accused of trying to travel to Syria to join so-called Islamic State.

Ghulam Hussain, 30, from Batley, West Yorkshire, is accused of giving an undercover policeman cash for the trip.
Mr Hussain, of Track Road, is alleged to have bought a plane ticket to travel to Pakistan later this month and return via Turkey a week later.
He appeared before Westminster magistrates charged with two offences under Section 5 of the Terrorism Act.
He is accused of engaging in conduct in preparation for committing an act of terrorism, and engaging in conduct with the intention of assisting another person to commit an act of terrorism.
Mr Hussain is also alleged to have obtained credit cards by providing false details of employment and income.
He was remanded in custody to appear at the Old Bailey on 17 November.


Lee Clark questioned the desire and spirit of his players after defeat by Ross County left Kilmarnock in the Premiership relegation play-off place.

"At half-time, County looked like the team fighting for their lives, which was a real disappointment," Clark said.
"You should have so much fire in your belly that I'm struggling to keep you on the pitch in terms of your controlled aggression.
"It shouldn't be letting people have free headers in the penalty area."
Clark was not just unhappy at his players' defending for both Ross goals, but their failure to create any clear chances as they slipped to an eighth Premiership home defeat of the season.
"[We were] not good enough in both boxes," he added. "[It was] two awful goals we've given away. The situations we created didn't work the goalkeeper enough. So I'm really disappointed."
Ross County scored with their first attack, when Alex Schalk was left unmarked to head home Michael Gardyne's cross.
The substitute Brian Graham sealed the victory with a second late on, after Kilmarnock failed to clear their lines.
"We're concerned because of the position we're in and the result," added Clark.  "This was a great opportunity, albeit against a good Ross County team, where we had a chance to get three points.
"[We need to] change the mentality of the players. That's three games without a goal, and take away the Motherwell game [a 2-0 win] it's five or six without a goal. Goals win you games and we need to win games, but we need to be able to defend better than we have tonight."
Victory was only the second in five league games for Ross County since they reached the final of the Scottish League Cup.
But manager Jim McIntyre does not believe the prospect of the game against Hibernian at Hampden has had a psychological effect on his players.
"Over the last two or three months it's been that way where we'd win a couple and lose a couple," McIntyre said.
"But we set out our team to attack, we knew the importance of three points. We were dominant from minute one, should have been two or three goals up at half-time, and showed the character to dig in when Killie put us under a bit of pressure.
"The disappointing thing was not to score further goals, which our play deserved. We got into some great areas and had some dangerous set-plays also, but I was delighted to get that killer second goal late on in the match. We managed the game really well."


Two men have been arrested after jumping into the Ouse in York, despite being warned by police about the dangers of river swimming.

In 2014 four people drowned in rivers at various spots in the city.
Volunteers on the York Rescue Boat were sent to King's Staith on Saturday evening but the men had left the water.
Police said both men, aged in their 20s, were arrested on suspicion of being drunk and disorderly.
In May 2014, Dr Mandeep Ahluwalia was found in the River Ouse near St Peter's School playing fields in Clifton.
He was the fourth person to have died in a York river that year.
In January, 20-year-old student Megan Roberts drowned, also in the Ouse.
In March, Ben Clarkson, 22, drowned in the River Foss, while in April soldier Tyler Pearson, 18, drowned in the Ouse.
Ms Roberts, Mr Clarkson and Mr Pearson had all been on nights out with friends.


The NHS spends nearly £700 on clinical negligence cover for every live birth in England, a report says.

The review by the National Audit Office said last year this cost nearly £500m - almost a fifth of all spending on maternity.
Public Accounts Committee chairwoman Margaret Hodge said the figure was "absolutely scandalous".
The Department of Health said the NHS is one of the safest places in the world to have a baby.
Having a baby is the most common reason for admission to hospital in England.
The number of births has increased by almost a quarter in the last decade, reaching nearly 700,000 live births.
The public spending watchdog said maternity services were generally good for women and babies, but there was still a lot of scope for improvement.
Its report highlighted "wide unexplained variations" between trusts in rates of complications such as readmissions, injuries and infections.
Laura Blackwell, director of health value for money studies at the National Audit Office, told the BBC the number of maternity claims had risen significantly in recent years.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, she said: "There has been an increase in claims and we don't cover exactly why. It is the same across the NHS.
"I think it's a complicated picture... further complicated by the fact it takes an average of four years for a claim to be settled... so it's quite hard to draw conclusions about the current state of care."
The NAO also pointed to a shortage of midwives and consultants on labour wards. The report concluded that a further 2,300 midwives are required, though their distribution across England varies substantially.
And although it said the level of consultant presence has improved, more than half of units are not meeting the standard recommended by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.
The report noted that between April and September last year more than a quarter of maternity units were closed to admissions for at least half a day because demand outstripped capacity.
Clinical negligence claims for maternity have risen by 80% in the last five years. The cost of cover last year was £482m, and the average payment per claim was £277,000.
Figures from the NHS Litigation Authority released last year showed the health service in England paid out more than £3bn in compensation claims linked to maternity care between 2000 and 2010.
Ms Hodge said: "I find it absolutely scandalous that one fifth of all funding for maternity services, equivalent to around £700 per birth, is spent on clinical negligence cover."
She said the NAO report had shown an urgent need to improve maternity services.
"The department needs to buck up and take responsibility for this. It needs to review its monitoring and reporting process to ensure that all relevant bodies can work effectively together to deliver maternity services that are value for money and fit for purpose."
James (not his real name), a recipient of medical negligence money, told the Today programme the money had helped give his son a better quality of life.
He and his wife did not claim for negligence until six months after the birth of their son, when they realised the costs involved in his care. Their son had been starved of oxygen during birth and now suffers from quadriplegic cerebral palsy, severe brain damage, visual impairment and epilepsy.
Health Minister Dr Dan Poulter said the health service should always learn from any mistakes to improve patient care in the future.
"The NHS remains one of the safest places in the world to have a baby, but on rare occasions care falls below acceptable standards and unsafe care should never be tolerated."
He said the service was making progress.
"This report shows that most women have good outcomes and positive experiences of maternity care. We know 84% of women now say they have good care, which has gone up from 75% six years ago.  But we are determined to improve further."
Royal College of Midwives chief executive Cathy Warwick said the report backed up what the college had been saying for a long time.
"We are many thousands of midwives short of the number needed to deliver safe, high quality care. Births are at a 40-year high and other figures out this week show that this is set to continue. As the report states, births are also becoming increasingly complex putting even more demands on midwives and maternity services."
Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists president Dr David Richmond said the NAO report raised valid concerns.
"Although the UK is generally a safe place for women to give birth, we have known for some time that pressure on maternity services is growing in some areas, particularly inner city conurbations, placing stress on clinicians, managers and patients alike."


Prominent human rights lawyer Amal Clooney and her husband, award-winning actor George, are expecting twins, US media report.

The babies are due in June, according to CBS's The Talk host Julie Chen.
Another source close to the couple, quoted by People, said they were "very happy". The Clooneys' representatives have not yet commented.
The couple married in Venice in 2014 with a star-studded list of guests who included Matt Damon and Bill Murray.
Rumours that they might be expecting began to circulate last month when Mrs Clooney was spotted wearing a loose-fitting dress.
Mr Clooney, 55, has starred in numerous Hollywood films and has won two Academy Awards.
Mrs Clooney, 39, has represented a number of high profile figures, including former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and Australian Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.


Kate Richardson-Walsh, who captained GB's hockey team to a first Olympic gold medal in Rio will be the guest of honour at this year's sports awards.

The 36-year-old from Manchester played alongside wife Helen as they became the first same-sex married couple to win Olympic gold in the same final.
IoM sport's Gary Corkhill said her "vast international experience" will make her "a fascinating guest."
The awards ceremony will be held at the Villa Marina in Douglas on 22 March.
After Rio, she retired from international duty after a record 375 appearances, 49 goals and 13 years as England and GB skipper.
Corkhill added: "Kate is an inspirational and charismatic leader who helped build the incredible team ethos and commitment that drove the GB team to its nail-biting victory in Rio."
Richardson-Walsh said: "The Isle of Man has a fantastic sporting pedigree and it's a privilege to be able to take part in the awards."
Nominations for the Isle of Man Sports Awards close in January.


The air service linking north and south Wales will continue for another four years as its annual assembly government subsidy rises from £800,000 to £1.2m.

The current operator Manx2.com has secured the Cardiff-Anglesey contract along with its partner FLM Aviation.
But Liberal Democrats say it is an "environmental and financial outrage".
Anglesey AM and Deputy First Minister Ieuan Wyn Jones said the decision reflected the assembly government's determination to maintain the link.
"This air link joining north and south Wales has proved itself to be an efficient, reliable and popular service," said Mr Jones.
"This service is well used, it is well utilised, and it's a wide range of people - there are business people, people visiting friends and families, people going for tourism opportunities, as well as of course as people from the public sector.
"I think it is justified, simply because we need to maintain good communications between north and south of our country."
Clive McGregor, leader of Anglesey council, welcomed the subsidy, saying it was "good news and brings us certainty for another four years".
He added that Manx2's record has been "excellent so far".
"The hope is that together we can develop the service from Maes Awyr Môn and that destinations such as Dublin and the Isle of Man will be offered in the future," Mr McGregor said.
Isle of Man-based Manx2.com took over running of the route in May after the airline Highland Airways went into administration in March.
It was awarded the new contract after the assembly government out the service out to tender in July.
Manx2.com chairman Noel Hayes said: "As a Celtic neighbour, Manx2.com is delighted to have been chosen to continue the connection between Cardiff and Anglesey.
"With our home base just 50 miles away across the Irish Sea, we're excited about continuing our award-winning Manx service into the future."
The decision was criticised by Welsh Liberal Democrats, who have long opposed the service, which has been dubbed "Ieuan Air" by some after the Anglesey AM and Plaid Cymru leader.
The party's transport spokesperson, Jenny Randerson said: "At a time when families and business are cutting back, it beggars belief that the Labour-Plaid government can waste another £4.8m of taxpayers' money subsidising the Ieuan Air airlink.
"It is an environmental and financial outrage."
The party said it was "simply scandalous" that the new deal also tied in any future assembly government to the service for the next four years.
"The Welsh Liberal Democrats will now look to see what can be done to ensure a future government is free to scrap this wasteful and polluting subsidy," added Ms Randerson.
However, the assembly government has defended the increase in subsidy for the service, which jumps by 50% to £1.2m a year.
A spokesperson said it reflected changes since the first north-south airlink agreement in 2007.
"Since then the costs of operating the service has increased, for example increases in fuel, salary costs, landing charges, etc, the current budget limit reflects these increased costs," added the spokesperson.


A Gaston Ramirez header was enough to give Middlesbrough only a second win since August and leave Hull stuck in the Premier League relegation zone.

Ramirez, the game's outstanding player, nodded in Viktor Fischer's corner after being left unmarked at the back post.
Fischer earlier had a goal ruled out for offside, while Boro striker Alvaro Negredo wasted two good chances.
Hull, who have lost eight of their past 10 league games, rallied late on but did not deserve a point.
The Tigers remain 19th in the table, two points above bottom club Swansea and one from safety.
Boro, who have now lost only one in six, climb to 13th, four points above the relegation zone.
It was entirely appropriate that Ramirez settled a low-quality affair between two sides that were promoted from the Championship last season.
The Uruguayan, playing against one of his former clubs, was a consistent threat down the Middlesbrough right, an attacking exception in a game in which both sides preferred to exercise caution until the closing stages.
In the first half, he played his part in creating an opening for Negredo, only for the home frontman to slice over, with Ramirez himself also forcing a save from David Marshall with an effort from long distance.
A quarter of an hour into the second half he made the telling intervention, left alone by marker Adama Diomande to bounce a header inside the far post.
Even as Boro began to sit back, the former Southampton man was instrumental in creating an opening that eventually saw Fischer shoot wide.
"He sees things on the pitch that other people in this match were not able to spot," said former Liverpool defender Mark Lawrenson on BBC Radio 5 live. "He was the class act in a very dull game."
Until they went behind, Hull were camped inside their own half, either through the necessity of having to defend or a desire to settle for a point.
While central defenders Michael Dawson and Curtis Davies were excellent, the visitors showed virtually no quality or incision going forward and were often incapable of simply keeping the ball.
A Diomande run into the Boro box, halted by a brilliant Ben Gibson tackle, was Hull's only attack of note in the first half and the Tigers did not threaten until the hosts retreated to protect their lead.
Even then, a tame Dawson header and a scuffed Sam Clucas effort seemed like the closest they would come until Diomande caused Boro some late nerves.
A long-range shot forced a flying save from Victor Valdes, with the same man failing to connect with a back-post lunge at a corner. It was much too little, much too late.
"I'm very fearful for Hull," said Lawrenson. "Looking at them and what they have got I think they will go down."
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Middlesbrough manager Aitor Karanka: "We deserved to win, we had a lot of chances and all of the possession. We were confident on the pitch and once we went ahead we had the experience to manage the game.
"Sometimes Gaston Ramirez will score, sometimes another player, but we won promotion to the Premier League by playing as a team and that is how we stay.
"We have 15 points - we must keep going and working together. We have to fight with the teams in the relegation positions because we are a newly promoted team. We have done nothing yet."
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Hull boss Mike Phelan: "We tried to drag something out of it but it was really, really disappointing. We gave away a ridiculous goal from a set-piece, we all have jobs to do and we didn't concentrate.
"We defended well at times and after they scored we came into it but we have to do better and not concede when we don't need to. We all understand the predicament we are in and hardship that we face but we have enough players to do certain jobs.
"We are short on the ground, we have added a couple, but we are where we are because of the beginning of the season. We have to keep our heads above water."
Hull welcome fellow strugglers Crystal Palace on Saturday, while Boro make the long trip to Southampton on Sunday.
Match ends, Middlesbrough 1, Hull City 0.
Second Half ends, Middlesbrough 1, Hull City 0.
Foul by Adam Clayton (Middlesbrough).
David Meyler (Hull City) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Adam Forshaw (Middlesbrough) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Foul by Tom Huddlestone (Hull City).
Foul by Álvaro Negredo (Middlesbrough).
Curtis Davies (Hull City) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Corner,  Hull City. Conceded by Víctor Valdés.
Attempt saved. Adama Diomande (Hull City) right footed shot from long range on the left is saved in the top right corner. Assisted by Sam Clucas.
Corner,  Middlesbrough. Conceded by David Meyler.
Offside, Middlesbrough. Fabio tries a through ball, but Stewart Downing is caught offside.
Fabio (Middlesbrough) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Foul by Jarrod Bowen (Hull City).
Substitution, Middlesbrough. Stewart Downing replaces Gastón Ramírez because of an injury.
Delay over. They are ready to continue.
Delay in match Gastón Ramírez (Middlesbrough) because of an injury.
Attempt missed. Sam Clucas (Hull City) left footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses to the right. Assisted by Adama Diomande.
Attempt saved. Michael Dawson (Hull City) header from the left side of the box is saved in the bottom right corner. Assisted by Tom Huddlestone.
Corner,  Hull City. Conceded by Antonio Barragán.
Delay over. They are ready to continue.
Substitution, Hull City. David Meyler replaces Markus Henriksen.
Delay in match Calum Chambers (Middlesbrough) because of an injury.
Substitution, Middlesbrough. Cristhian Stuani replaces Viktor Fischer.
Attempt missed. Viktor Fischer (Middlesbrough) right footed shot from the left side of the box is high and wide to the right.
Viktor Fischer (Middlesbrough) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Robert Snodgrass (Hull City).
Corner,  Middlesbrough. Conceded by Andrew Robertson.
Attempt missed. Sam Clucas (Hull City) header from the centre of the box is too high. Assisted by Robert Snodgrass with a cross following a corner.
Corner,  Hull City. Conceded by Calum Chambers.
Attempt saved. Álvaro Negredo (Middlesbrough) header from the centre of the box is saved in the top centre of the goal. Assisted by Fabio with a cross.
Marten de Roon (Middlesbrough) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Dangerous play by Robert Snodgrass (Hull City).
Viktor Fischer (Middlesbrough) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Markus Henriksen (Hull City).
Fabio (Middlesbrough) is shown the yellow card.
Foul by Fabio (Middlesbrough).
Adama Diomande (Hull City) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Attempt missed. Adam Clayton (Middlesbrough) right footed shot from outside the box misses to the left following a corner.
Corner,  Middlesbrough. Conceded by Michael Dawson.


Spaniard Mario Mola won his third World Triathlon Series race of the season with victory in Yokohama.

Mola, 26, clocked one hour 46 minutes 27 seconds to beat Mexico's Crisanto Grajales by 15 seconds.
With the Brownlee brothers absent, Adam Bowden was the highest placed-Briton, finishing 12th in 1:47.24.
American world champion Gwen Jorgensen won the women's event - her fourth successive victory in Japan - in a race featuring no British competitors.
Britons Non Stanford and Jodie Stimpson had claimed the first two places in Cape Town last month.
Both events in Yokohama featured a 1.5km swim, a 40km bike ride and a 10km run.
Mola, who was fourth in Cape Town having won the opening two races in Abu Dhabi and the Gold Coast, withstood the congestion during the swim and bike legs that saw more than 60 men enter the second transition together.
The Spaniard powered away to his first victory in Japan, with Grajales and Kristian Blummenfelt ensuring Mexico and Norway were represented on a World Triathlon Series podium for the first time.
Jorgensen, meanwhile, secured her first win of the season with a run of 32 minutes 15 seconds - the fastest 10km split ever in Yokohama.
The 30-year-old is fourth in the overall standings.
Australia's Ashleigh Gentle and Ai Ueda of Japan had a close contest for second, with Gentle edging home to take silver.
The next event is in Leeds on 12 June.
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An historic town in East Sussex is being transformed this weekend as it celebrates its first Festival of Light.

The Lewes event aims to celebrate and showcase the latest in public and artistic lighting design.
Organisers hope to develop an annual Festival of Light which would also promote the town's history, architecture and creativity.
Professional lighting designers have transformed around 10 key landmarks, including Pells Pool and Lewes Castle.
The two-day event aims to explore science, astronomy, sustainability, health, environment, wildlife and the impact of lighting in a sensitive area.


Fans of the 1980s television show Auf Wiedersehen, Pet have launched a bid to save a country pub featured heavily in the second series of the comedy drama.

The Windmill Inn, in Redmile, Leicestershire, is up for sale ahead of its owners' retirement.
Better known to viewers of the ITV show as The Barley Mow, the Auf Wiedersehen, Pet fansite believes funds can be raised to keep it running.
It is feared it could be converted into a residential property.
Lee Barratt, from the fansite, said the pub was a "national treasure" and a consortium of fans could potentially raise £500,000 to save it.
He said: "It sounds like a crazy idea. But there's a lot of fans. We can do it.
"We wouldn't change it, we'd keep it running as a pub and a great location for fans."
The comedy drama, written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, first hit British TV screens in 1983 and starred Jimmy Nail, Tim Healey, Kevin Whately and Timothy Spall.
The first series of the hit show was about seven construction workers who left the UK to work on a building site in Germany.
The second series saw the gang reunited to renovate a country manor in a village where the locals were not too welcoming - particularly Arthur Pringle, the landlord of the Barley Mow.
One famous scene saw the boys brick up the door to the pub following an argument with Pringle.
The pub has become a place of pilgrimage for fans, who often visit to take pictures and recreate scenes.
The Windmill is currently owned by David Rutt, 64, and his wife Kirsten Rutt, 48. They have run the pub for 16 years.
Mr Rutt said: "Quite a few of them [Auf Wiedersehen, Pet fans] come here. We're well supported and we have some fun, but we want to retire and just want to sell."
He said if The Windmill had not been sold before the end of April, it would be auctioned.


An incorrectly-fitted screw caused the closure of an international airport, an accident report has concluded.

Flights from East Midlands Airport were temporarily suspended after problems with a light aircraft on 14 January.
Faults with the private plane's landing gear while it was on the runway also caused some flights to be redirected.
The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) stated the source of the problem was the "incorrect fitment of a set screw."
The pilot was being taught how to fly the Cessna G-MAPP aircraft.
When it landed at the airport, at Castle Donington, Leicestershire, the left wing began to sink.
The plane was forced off the runway and onto the grass.
None of the three people on board were injured.
"The cause of the landing gear collapse was most probably the incorrect fitment of a set screw in the downlock link," the AAIB's report said.
The AAIB recommended the aircraft's manufacturer tells operators how to ensure the set screw is properly installed.
It also said the aircraft's maintenance manuals are adjusted to include this information.


Hampshire have brought in former Yorkshire and Derbyshire spinner David Wainwright as cover for their County Championship match at Somerset.

Liam Dawson is on international duty with England, while Brad Taylor is struggling with an ankle injury.
Wainwright, 31, left Derbyshire by mutual consent last August and has been playing Minor Counties cricket for Shropshire this season.
Hampshire are yet to decide if he will stay on for the rest of the summer.
"He'll be available for selection at Taunton and then we'll see from there," Hampshire director of cricket Giles White told BBC Radio Solent.
"The last championship match there, it spun a lot. Somerset have a lot of right-handers too and David can turn the ball away from the bat."
Hampshire are currently next to bottom in Division One and 16 points behind seventh-placed Durham with four games to play.


Linfield boss David Healy is confident his team will see off San Marino's La Fiorita to secure a Champions League meeting with Scottish giants Celtic.

The Irish Premiership title holders take a slender 1-0 lead into Tuesday's away leg of the game against La Fiorita thanks to a late Jordan Stewart goal.
"I believe we were the better team and proved it," said Healy after the first leg at Windsor Park.
"But they have some decent players and we knew we would get a game."
Getting through to the second qualifying round would earn Linfield 540,000 euro in prize money from Uefa.
Former Glentoran and Swindon Town player Stewart came on as a substitute in the 60th minute of Wednesday's game.
"I knew Jordan would give us that bit of quality - you can see it in training when he leaves guys for dead," former Northern Ireland striker Healy said.
"He showed great composure and it was a fantastic goal on his debut.
"Jordan was desperate to come to Linfield. He lives round the corner and his grandfather played for Linfield.
"I was delighted to get the win and a clean sheet.
"Our fans got a wee bit edgy which you expect in a home tie.
"It would have been nice to get a second or third, but the way the players kept going was a credit to them and their fitness levels."


Avon and Somerset's police chief has been temporarily moved away from his job following a misconduct hearing.

Earlier this month Nick Gargan, 48, was found guilty of eight charges of misconduct but cleared of gross misconduct by an independent panel.
Details can not yet be made public about what the panel ruled Mr Gargan had done, according to the police and crime commissioner's (PCC) office.
He is returning to work but not yet in Avon and Somerset, the PCC said.
Sue Mounstevens added he would be "carrying out some work with the National Police Chief's Council [NPCC]", although no further details were given.
Mr Gargan, who joined the force in March 2013 will, officially remain employed as chief constable.
According to its website, the NPCC develops best practice for different areas of police work in areas such as criminal justice, cyber-crime and drugs.
Mr Gargan was initially investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission which found there was no case to answer for any criminal charges being brought against him.
The commission then recommended his case be referred to an independent misconduct proceedings panel.
Dorian Lovell-Pank QC chaired the panel, which included Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary, Wendy Williams, and independent member John Rickard.
A private hearing, separate from Avon and Somerset Police, was held to discuss the matter and the findings of the panel are yet to be published.
In the meantime, Mr Gargan and Avon and Somerset PCC Sue Mountstevens said they were not allowed to speak publicly about the case.
Mr Gargan has told the BBC he wanted the details of his offences made public immediately, and could not see any reason why they should not be.
However Ms Mountstevens said: "The misconduct process is not yet complete. I'm waiting for the misconduct panel's report. When I receive that I will hold a further hearing with the chief constable to determine his sanction."


Russia is considering plans to resume its military presence in Vietnam and Cuba, the country's deputy defence minister says.

Nikolai Pankov announced a review of the decision to close the two bases more than a decade ago.
The two served as pivots of Soviet military power during the Cold War.
It comes amid growing tensions between the US and Russia, and as Russia's parliament approved a longer term military presence at a Syrian airbase.
Mr Pankov told the Russian parliament on Friday they were "dealing with the issue" of the two bases, Russian news agencies reported.
He declined to go into detail.
It comes two years after Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu first revealed they were looking into bases in both Vietnam and Cuba, as well as countries including Singapore and Nicaragua, according to The Diplomat.
Russia lowered its flag at the Lourdes signals intelligence base in Cuba and the deepwater Cam Rahn naval base in Vietnam in the early 2000s as part of a drawing down of Russia's military presence around the world after the demise of the Soviet Union.
During the same session, Russia's parliament voted to approve an "indefinite" deployment of forces in Syria at the Hmeimim airbase.
The facility had been supporting Russian troops since August 2015 on a temporary basis, but Friday's vote could lead to a permanent base.


New beach huts built to replace those lost in the St Valentine's Day storm on the Hampshire coast in 2014 have been handed to their owners.

Most of the privately-owned concrete huts at Milford-on-Sea were destroyed during the storm, with the rest later requiring demolition.
New Forest District Council said the huts had been set into the promenade "to reduce exposure to the elements".
The authority said the 119 huts, new promenade and sea wall had cost £2.36m.
It said owners had made a "substantial contribution" towards the replacement huts and the expenditure of the project would be recouped over time through licence fees.


Twenty-six people have been treated for mild hypothermia after two canoes capsized on the River Foyle on Saturday afternoon.

It happened on the river between Magheramason in County Tyrone and Carrigans in County Donegal.
The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service, the PSNI and the Irish coastguard were among those involved in the rescue.
Six people were airlifted to Londonderry's Altnagelvin Hospital and were treated for mild hypothermia.
Another 12 were taken by ambulance and the rest were treated at the scene.
Two canoes were taking part in a "married versus singles" race when one of them capsized at about 14:00 BST on Saturday during a fundraising event for the YMCA.
It is understood there was a heavy swell in windy conditions and both canoes had begun to take in water.
William Lamrock from the YMCA said all 26 people ended up, some for about 20 minutes. All were wearing life jackets.
He said one of the boats was able to help the other after it overturned and everyone had reached the shore by the time emergency services arrived.
The second boat capsized close to the shore.
"We're very, very thankful that this didn't end up in a horrific incident," he said.
"Thankfully everyone knew what they were doing and thankfully the people with the canoes gave good leadership and we got ashore."
The rescue operation, which was declared a major incident, also involved the Coleraine Coastguard Rescue Team, Foyle Search and Rescue and the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service.
John McPoland, from the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service, said: "All services sprung into action very quickly and thankfully everybody was taken from the water.
"What we've found today is that our capacity to respond to such an incident was severely tested for all emergency services and it's a tribute to all the services involved that they were able to pull together so quickly and ensure there was no tragedies involved in today's incident."
SDLP Foyle assembly member Mark H Durkan tweeted: "Just been at scene of major incident response at River Foyle, think everyone out of water ok. Well done emergency teams!"
In a further statement he said: "It has been a cold day and the water in the river would have been freezing.
"Coupled with the strong current and high tide it is extremely fortunate that we did not witness a tragedy here today.
"I must commend the swift and brave actions of Foyle Search and Rescue, the Irish Coastguard and all the emergency services whose efficiency and professionalism certainly saved lives."


Four men arrested in connection with loyalist paramilitary crime in County Londonderry have been released unconditionally.

The men, aged 54, 47, 43 and 36, were arrested in the Coleraine area on Thursday.
They were taken to Antrim police station for questioning, and were released a day later.


A Welsh filmmaker has said the industry is technologically on the "cusp of another revolution" which will change how people experience cinema.

Lynwen Brennan, who has become a CBE for her services to supporting the UK's visual effects industry, was speaking after her investiture ceremony.
Mrs Brennan has been involved in films including Star Wars and Iron Man.
Originally from Narberth in Pembrokeshire, she is now based in San Francisco.
The general manager of Lucasfilm, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) and Skywalker Sound said: "In some ways film hasn't changed - the medium itself - you go to a theatre and you get entertained.
"The technology behind it has changed significantly - there is nothing we can't do now.
"I think that entertainment in general is on a cusp of another revolution. I think that with the advent of what we can do in real time now, means we can make the visuals interactive, immersive.
"In a few years time you'll be able to go to the cinema and have images going behind you, around you. With the advent of virtual reality and augmented reality you'll be able to interact with and really step inside those stories."
On the imminent release of the film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and the use of digital innovation within it, she said "it crosses a bar" which has not been able to be achieved before.
"It's a beautiful film which touches you in the heart, the visuals are stunning."
Quizzed about her experiences of working in a male-dominated industry, she said her "crusade" is to "change the gender imbalance".
She said that coming from a Welsh matriarchal family it never occurred to her to think about whether she was a woman or a man, and that it was not until she was in higher industry positions she realised "there is a major gender imbalance in the industry - especially within visual effects".
"Now I'm using my position," she said.
"We have got a long way to go - we are about 17% in the industry that are in visual effects that are women. But in ILM, in our entry level departments for the past few years, we have been at least 50/50.
"I've got hope for the future."


The Prison Service and police are to pool intelligence to stop drones flying drugs and mobile phones to prison inmates in England and Wales.

They will forensically examine captured drones to try to find out who was flying them.
The invention of easy-to-fly, remote-controlled aircraft has caused a huge security headache for prisons.
But critics have called the plan a "red herring" to distract people from "chaos and crisis" in prisons.
The national initiative will see police and prison officers share information about the quadcopters and methods used.
Prisons Minister Sam Gyimah said: "We are absolutely determined to tackle the illegal flow of drugs and mobile phones into our prisons and turn them into places of safety and reform.
"The threat posed by drones is clear but our dedicated staff are committed to winning the fight against those who are attempting to thwart progress by wreaking havoc in establishments all over the country.
"My message to those who involve themselves in this type of criminal activity is clear: we will find you and put you behind bars."
The Prison Service could not give details about how many officers would be involved, but reports suggested Â£3m would be spent on the new task force.
John Podmore, former head of the service's anti-corruption unit, said whilst there was an issue with contraband in prisons, targeting this money at drones was a "PR stunt".
"I have seen no evidence that there is a real problem with drones," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "I think the number of incidents last year was 33.
"There are some 10,000 mobile phones found every year in prisons. My question to the Prison Service would be, how many of those were found hanging from drones?"
Instead, Mr Podmore thought the service should be looking the wider issue of contraband smuggling, including the "main route [of] staff corruption".
Mike Rolfe, national chair of the Prison Officers Association, said prisoners had told him that they had seen two or three drones a night delivering packages over the walls.
However, he said he agreed with Mr Podmore that the initiative was an attempt to distract people from "the real issue [of] jails in complete chaos, in a crisis and flooded with drugs, mobile phones and weapons".
BBC home affairs correspondent Daniel Sandford says prison walls are now not much of a barrier for those wanting to smuggle contraband into jails.
There have been some recent successes in finding and punishing those who are behind the drone flights, says the Ministry of Justice.
In December, Dean Rawley-Bell, 21, was jailed for four years and eight months after he used a drone in attempts to smuggle drugs and mobile phones into Manchester Prison.
Renelle Carlisle, 23, was sentenced to three years and four months in October after he was caught outside Risley Prison in Warrington with a drone in his bag, trying to smuggle drugs inside.
In July, 37-year-old Daniel Kelly was jailed for 14 months for trying to supply contraband to offenders in Elmley and Swaleside Prison in Sheppey, Wandsworth Prison in London and the Mount Prison in Hemel Hempstead.


Torquay United midfielder Aman Verma is undergoing tests after collapsing at home after a training session.

The 27-year-old was sick during a gym session last week and was taken ill again later in the evening.
"He's very worried because he thought it was an off day, and it might just be a virus that has hit him hard," Torquay manager Kevin Nicholson told BBC Sport.
"But with all that's gone on lately in football with things like heart problems we couldn't take any chances."
Verma joined Torquay on loan from Kidderminster in November and the deal has since been extended until the end of the season.
"He's feeling fine now but the doctors have told him to do pretty much nothing, so he's bored out of his mind as he just has to rest until he's given the all-clear," Nicholson said.
It is hoped Verma will get the result of his tests on Monday, but he will miss Torquay's game with Chester on Saturday, having also sat out Tuesday's FA Trophy draw with Macclesfield.
"He was in a gym session and he was sick," Nicholson said.
"The immediate reaction when that happens is the lads take the mick as he they thought he was broken in the gym, but it's not like him as he's a very fit lad.
"He started immediately with headaches and then in the evening he collapsed when he went to go to the toilet.
"He went to be looked at by the doctor the next morning and they couldn't get to the bottom of what it was after having all kinds of tests and since then he's been out of commission and he's had a few other tests."
In December 2014, winger Courtney Cameron was taken to hospital by a teammate after suffering acute headaches and dizziness, which was later diagnosed as a problem with his teeth.


Shares in Japanese electronics maker Sony have slumped 10% after investors responded to the firm's results.

It was Sony's biggest share price fall in years. The company was the second-most traded stock on the Nikkei index.
After the close of market trading on Thursday, the firm had reported losses for the October-December period of 10.8bn yen ($115m; Â£73m).
The maker of the Playstation and Bravia TV has lost money for the past four years.
The latest quarterly figures brought total losses in the nine months to the end of December to 50.9bn yen, a 75% fall on the previous nine months. Sony made record losses of 557bn yen for the whole of 2011 financial year
Sony's share price had seen a strong performance in January - rallying 42% - caught up with investor enthusiasm over a weaker yen.
The company is Japan's largest exporter so it benefits from a weaker currency because that makes its goods cheaper overseas.
"The company's stock has been bought because of a weakening yen, but unless it can show that its top line is also growing, it does not look very attractive," said Hajime Nakajima from Iwai Cosmo Securities.


The three co-founders of travel search firm Skyscanner have invested in a new scheduling app developed in Scotland.

Bonamy Grimes, Barry Smith and Gareth Williams are backing Decidz, a free app designed to help people organise events together and chat about them.
An initial funding round, which included the trio, is understood to have raised nearly Â£500,000 for the business.
Decidz was founded in July last year and employs 10 staff in Edinburgh.
It is based at tech incubator CodeBase.
Decidz's co-founders are former senior Skyscanner executives Tom Williams and Craig Parker. Tom's brother is Gareth Williams.
Tom Williams said: "We think the scheduling space is missing a trick and we're developing a product better designed to fit the user's lifestyle rather than being just another tool.
"Decidz is less about calendar management and more about creating a conversation that leads to people doing more together."
Former Skyscanner chairman Ray Nolan, who is also an investor in Decidz, said: "Decidz is solving a problem that has dogged the internet since people first discovered email.
"A simple get-together of more than a couple of people can take literally hours to organise."
Decidz said it was targeting a local audience in Scotland and the UK before extending its user base internationally.
As part of its strategy, the company will use the Edinburgh Festivals in August to showcase the product.
It plans to secure further funding rounds to accelerate growth and scale, including in the fast-growing markets of Asia-Pacific and the Americas.


St Johnstone breezed past Tayside rivals Dundee with a 2-0 Scottish Premiership win at McDiarmid Park.

Paul Paton's 12th-minute header opened the scoring, before Blair Alston rasped in a second seven minutes later.
A slack Dundee seldom threatened - James Vincent came closest to a second-half goal, but his effort was well-parried by Zander Clark.
The victory keeps Saints a point behind third-placed Hearts, while Dundee drop to eighth.
With three defeats in their last three home games you could not have blamed the hosts for feeling rather nervous as they took to the field to take on their fierce rivals.
However, boss Tommy Wright clearly had his players fired-up for the task, and when Graham Cummins knocked a Joe Shaughnessy cross back into the box, the advancing Paton was on hand to knock the ball beyond Scott Bain in the Dundee goal.
Bain may feel he ought to have kept out Alston's 22-yard drive, but the scoreline was no less than Saints deserved.
Dundee appeared to have turned the corner with recent wins over Motherwell and Rangers, but performances like this will spark renewed anxiety among the Dens Park support.
With attackers Marcus Haber, Craig Wighton and Henrik Ojamaa starting, there was plenty of firepower on the pitch, but for the first 45 minutes, Clark was a mere spectator.
It wasn't until four minutes after the break that he was called into action, blocking Vincent's shot to thwart Dundee's first serious foray into Saints territory,
With the league split just five games away, and Dundee three points and two places from the top six, Dundee are at risk of a bottom-half finish for the second year running, and could yet be dragged into a relegation battle.
With one of the lowest budgets in the Premiership, St Johnstone are once again proving that you don't need to throw bundles of cash at your team to be a success. And in Wright they have one of the shrewdest top-flight managers around when it comes to seeking out footballing talent.
Wright plucked Alston from Championship side Falkirk last summer, and secured the services of Ross County defender Richard Foster on a free transfer early in the season.
The Perth side are once again well on course for a top-six spot, and it may be only a matter of time before bigger clubs than Saints come calling for Wright and his sidekick Calum Davidson.
St Johnstone manager Tommy Wright: "The tempo we played at from the first whistle to the last was excellent and that was with or without the ball. We created a lot of opportunities.
"Dundee may have had more possession but in the shot count and crosses we were way ahead in terms of creating more chances.
"That was probably Alston's best game since he joined. He has done extremely well this season. I think we were able to get the ball into the strikers' feet and play off them.
"The target is still the top six. We don't relax. I have seen it happen when we have lost five in the league. It's not going to happen, I hope."
Dundee manager Paul Hartley: "That was the flattest performance of the season from us. I thought we were right off the pace. St Johnstone were onto second balls, they were more determined than us.
"I don't know why, sometimes you have to ask the players that. It's not the way they have worked in training or how they have been over the last month.
"We now have to get back to working away for the Celtic game but that today was not an acceptable performance. We still have an opportunity (for a top-six place) but the games are running out fast.
"We are still looking over our shoulders, but our ambitions are to get into the top six. If we perform like that we won't get into it."
Match ends, St. Johnstone 2, Dundee 0.
Second Half ends, St. Johnstone 2, Dundee 0.
Foul by Liam Craig (St. Johnstone).
Faissal El Bakhtaoui (Dundee) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Cameron Kerr (Dundee) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Steven MacLean (St. Johnstone).
Steven MacLean (St. Johnstone) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Substitution, St. Johnstone. Craig Thomson replaces Blair Alston.
Foul by Murray Davidson (St. Johnstone).
Danny Williams (Dundee) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Joe Shaughnessy (St. Johnstone) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Marcus Haber (Dundee).
Foul by Murray Davidson (St. Johnstone).
Mark O'Hara (Dundee) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Blair Alston (St. Johnstone) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Danny Williams (Dundee) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Foul by Danny Williams (Dundee).
Corner,  Dundee. Conceded by Steven MacLean.
Corner,  Dundee. Conceded by Richard Foster.
Attempt blocked. Faissal El Bakhtaoui (Dundee) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked.
Foul by Richard Foster (St. Johnstone).
Danny Williams (Dundee) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Graham Cummins (St. Johnstone) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Foul by Cameron Kerr (Dundee).
Substitution, St. Johnstone. Murray Davidson replaces Danny Swanson.
Foul by Tam Scobbie (St. Johnstone).
Marcus Haber (Dundee) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Attempt missed. Faissal El Bakhtaoui (Dundee) right footed shot from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the right following a set piece situation.
Foul by Richard Foster (St. Johnstone).
Paul McGowan (Dundee) wins a free kick on the right wing.
Substitution, Dundee. Danny Williams replaces Craig Wighton.
Foul by Tam Scobbie (St. Johnstone).
Faissal El Bakhtaoui (Dundee) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Paul Paton (St. Johnstone) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Foul by Darren O'Dea (Dundee).
Attempt saved. Blair Alston (St. Johnstone) left footed shot from the left side of the box is saved in the top centre of the goal.
Faissal El Bakhtaoui (Dundee) is shown the yellow card.
Corner,  Dundee. Conceded by Steven MacLean.
Corner,  Dundee. Conceded by Zander Clark.
Corner,  Dundee. Conceded by Brian Easton.


One person has died and nine others remain missing after an apartment block collapsed on the Spanish island of Tenerife.

The four-storey building in Los Cristianos, on the south of the island, collapsed at 09:30 local time (08:30 GMT), emergency officials said.
The body of a woman aged about 70 was found in the rubble, local media said.
Residents living near the building said they had heard a large explosion shortly before it collapsed.
Three people were also injured in the incident, one seriously.
Nearby apartments were later evacuated over fears of a gas leak.
Arona municipality said searches for nine of the 28 people who lived in the building were continuing.
It is not clear if those who are unaccounted for were in the building when it fell. Mayor Jose Julian Mena told Spain's Efe news agency it was unclear whether anyone was trapped.
Emergency officials on the Canary Islands said (in Spanish) that a 57-year-old woman had suffered serious injuries to her upper body.
Two others, a 28-year-old Italian man and a 55-year-old woman, were also treated, the latter after a panic attack.
One nearby resident told Spain's Efe news agency there had been a strong smell of gas in the area soon after the explosion.
The owner of the Hide Away Pub, a bar next to the affected building, said his terrace had been "obliterated" by the collapse.
Javier Velazquez told British newspaper The Sun that if the blast had happened in the evening, the number of casualties would have been "far worse".
English-language newspapers on the island say the area is popular with British tourists.


Colleges across Scotland are reporting strong demand from sporting estates for newly-trained gamekeepers.

The Scottish Gamekeepers' Association said the latest employment figures showed the sector was outperforming other areas of the economy.
North Highland College in Thurso reported that every one of this year's Higher National Certificate students has secured a job on a sporting estate.
Country sports are thought to be worth Â£240m a year to the Scottish economy.
The gamekeeping and wildlife management course was designed to provide students with training in conservation as well as traditional gamekeeping skills, including snaring and the use of firearms.
North Highland College gamekeeping lecturer Richard MacNicol said: "The modern gamekeeper has to have a rounded, balanced approach to land management.
"Our graduates are helping to support the rural economy and a diverse, well managed countryside."
Borders College and Scotland's Rural University College in Fife also said the skills obtained by their students were proving valuable to landowners.
The Scottish Gamekeepers' Association has welcomed the news.
SGA chairman Alex Hogg said: "This is a major success story and the three colleges deserve immense credit.
"We are creating youth jobs at a time when the economy is faltering and young people, especially in remote areas, have few other opportunities."
There is real frustration amongst landowners and the gamekeepers they employ about the profession's image.
Political and media attention often focuses on cases of wildlife crime, most notably the illegal persecution of birds of prey.
Gamekeepers believe they do not get the credit they deserve for the stewardship of our countryside, while landowners argue the economic benefit of country sports is often overlooked.
They are hoping the new generation of gamekeepers being trained by Scotland's colleges will help change that.
Angus McNicol, of Cawdor Estates near Nairn, told BBC Scotland: "It's a highly-trained profession these days. It's very different to how things were in the past."


The first Cybathlon, an Olympics for bionic athletes, will take place in Switzerland in October 2016.

The event will include a race where competitors control an avatar via a brain interface.
There will also be races for competitors wearing prosthetic limbs and exo-skeletons.
Hosted by the Swiss National Competence Center of Research, it is hoped the competition will spur interest in  human performance-enhancing technology.
The brain-computer interface race is designed for competitors who are paralysed from the neck down. They will control an avatar in a computer racing game via a headset that connects the brain to a computer.
There will also be races for those wearing arm or leg prosthetics, an exoskeleton race and a wheelchair race.
The assistive devices worn by the athletes, who will be known as pilots, can either be ones that are already commercially available or prototypes from research labs.
There will be two medals for each competition, one for the pilot and one for company that developed the device.
Bionic limbs and exoskeletons are becoming much more technically advanced, offering those wearing them much more realistic movements.
Prof Hugh Herr, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, showed off some of the prosthetics that his team have been working on at the Ted (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference in Vancouver last week.
He is currently in negotiations with health care professionals to get the bionic limbs more widely available to those who need them.
Often though there was a disconnect between technology and patients, said Prof Robert Riener, event organiser, from the University of Switzerland.
"The idea is that we want to push development of assistive technologies towards devices that patients can really use in everyday life," he told the BBC.
"Some of the current technologies look very fancy but are a long way from being practical and user-friendly," he added.
The other main aim of the games is to allow people to compete who have never had the opportunity before.
"We allow technology that has previously been excluded from the Paralympics. By making it a public event we want to get rid of the borders between patients, society and the technology community," Prof Riener said.


The mother of murdered Stephen Lawrence wants officers accused of wrongdoing over the case to be "rooted out" and face criminal charges, her lawyer says.

Imran Khan told the BBC police failings went to "the highest level" and Doreen Lawrence wanted "heads to roll".
A public inquiry into undercover policing was ordered as a review found a Met officer had spied on her family.
Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe called it "a devastating report for the Metropolitan Police".
He told the London Evening Standard it would "need a considered response".
The review, by Mark Ellison QC, also found it could not be ruled out that corruption may have compromised the investigation into Stephen's killing in 1993.
It was one of several revelations to emerge about the Metropolitan Police's former undercover unit, the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), in the review of the original handling of the case.
Stephen's father, Neville Lawrence, has expressed doubts that the planned judge-led public inquiry will be able to uncover the truth.
On Thursday, Home Secretary Theresa May told MPs the findings in the Ellison report had damaged the police and ordered the public inquiry.
The Ellison report found an SDS "spy" had worked within the "Lawrence family camp" during the Macpherson Inquiry, conducted in the late-90s to look at the way the police had investigated the murder of Stephen.
Mr Khan said that police failings in the handling of the Stephen Lawrence case went to "the highest level" but no officer had been held to account.
"What we want now is evidence... in the open, [and for] those officers to be either rooted out or to face, as Doreen wants, criminal prosecution. And indeed, as far as she's concerned, those officers at a senior level who made mistakes or otherwise acted improperly - for their heads to roll," he said.
Mr Khan also stressed that police had not been open with the original Macpherson Inquiry and there were now "serious questions to be answered".
"We want Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe to say with complete honesty [and] transparency, 'We are going to cooperate fully, we are going to give everything.'"
He added that while a judge-led inquiry would be able to order documents and witnesses, "you need to know those documents exist and those people exist who can answer questions".
"And what we want to ask Sir Bernard is, 'What do you have, have you given everything, or are you obfuscating as occurred during the Macpherson Inquiry?'"
The BBC's home editor Mark Easton said the latest revelations "mark a day of reckoning for Scotland Yard and potentially for trust in policing more generally".
In his first response to Thursday's Ellison review, Sir Bernard told the Evening Standard it was "a devastating report for the Metropolitan Police and one of the worst days that I have seen as a police officer".
He said it had been "awful" to see the impact on Stephen Lawrence's family, for whom he had "enormous respect".
"I cannot rewrite history and the events of the past but I do have a responsibility to ensure the trust and the confidence of the people of London in the Met now and in the future. This will need a considered response to meet head on the concerns that have been expressed in yesterday's report," he said.
On Thursday, Mr Lawrence told BBC Newsnight he had felt "devastated" by the revelations.
Black teenager Stephen Lawrence, 18, was stabbed to death in an unprovoked attack by a gang of white youths as he waited at a bus stop in Eltham, south-east London, in April 1993.
A number of suspects were identified soon after the attack but it took more than 18 years to bring his killers to justice.
Several attempts to prosecute the suspects, including a private prosecution by the family, failed owing to unreliable or insufficient evidence.
In 1997, then Home Secretary Jack Straw ordered a public inquiry into the killing and its aftermath after concerns about the way the police had handled the case.
Sir William Macpherson, a retired High Court judge, led the inquiry. He accused the police of institutional racism and found a number of failings in how they had investigated the murder.
In January 2012, Gary Dobson and David Norris were found guilty of the murder by an Old Bailey jury after a review of the forensic evidence.
Stephen Lawrence murder: Timeline
"To hear this being said on TV so the wider world could hear, I was vindicated.... if people had listened to us earlier on maybe things would have been different.
"From what happened with the Macpherson Inquiry, I'm very, very wary about what's going to happen now."
Stephen, a black teenager, was 18 when he was stabbed to death in an unprovoked attack by a gang of white youths in Eltham, south-east London, in April 1993.
However, it was not until 2012 that Gary Dobson and David Norris were found guilty of murdering him and sentenced to minimum terms of 15 years and two months and 14 years and three months respectively.
Mrs May said she had commissioned Mr Ellison, and the Crown Prosecution Service and attorney general, to conduct a further review into cases involving the SDS - a top secret Met police squad that was operational until 2006.
She said it was vital to establish whether there had been "miscarriages of justice" in relation to past criminal proceedings involving SDS officers.
Elsewhere, the Ellison review also found that the Met's own hard copy records of a broad investigation into possible corruption had been subject to a "mass shredding" in 2003.
The "chaotic state" of Met Police records meant a public inquiry might have "limited" potential to find out more information, it warned.


The road leading up to the Tanjung Intan port in Cilacap, near to the prison where several people were due to be executed, was packed with spectators, local people fascinated by the media frenzy on their doorstep.

"I know that there are people who will be executed tonight," said Rahsia, a young woman who came out after seeing the commotion on local television. "I know they sold drugs and that's wrong. There are lots of our young generation and our citizens who die because of drugs. The government must be firm."
It is a sentiment that echoes across Indonesia. Survey after survey shows that the majority of Indonesians support the death penalty for drug traffickers.
And the government was firm - eight convicted drug smugglers were executed by firing squad here on Tuesday night after exhausting the last of their appeals.
Joko Widodo, Indonesia's president, denied them clemency. He insists that Indonesia is facing a national drugs crisis and the punishment for traffickers must be severe.
"Eighteen thousand young people die in Indonesia every year because of drugs overdoses," Mr Widodo said in a recent interview. "We are serious about our war on drugs."
Some experts have called that figure into question, and have data suggesting that drug deaths have actually declined in Indonesia in recent years. Critics have also questioned whether all of those executed on Tuesday received due process, as some among them still had legal procedures under way.
But President Jokowi, as he is known here, is under pressure to show that he is a man of action. His first few months in office have been marked by inaction and indecision and his domestic approval ratings have dropped, making his heady victory last July look like a distant dream.
Analysts say he must show that he is in control and that the death penalty is an easy win for him. Backing down now, especially in the face of foreign pressure, would look like a sign of weakness.
Mr Widodo has publicly declared a war on drugs and said he will refuse all clemency applications from convicted drug traffickers - a stance that could prove legally problematic given that the very point of a presidential clemency is to evaluate each individual on a case-by-case basis, to see whether or not they've changed in prison.
But that will be little comfort to the families of the eight people who were executed, or to the scores of other convicted drug traffickers yet to meet their fate.
"Our boys have changed in prison," said Myuran Sukumaran's mother in an interview earlier this year. "They have become different men and deserve a second chance. Please don't kill our sons."
Indonesia risks souring relations with other nations over its hardline approach, as it has already with Australia, home of two of the smugglers. But Indonesia's new president appears willing to take the risk, even if it means tarnishing his own reputation as a liberal, reform-minded leader.


The EU's Sentinel satellite system has begun monitoring six mighty polar glaciers in near real-time.

The sextet - Pine Island and Thwaites in Antarctica; and Jakobshavn, Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden, Zacharae Isstrom and Petermann in Greenland - are major contributors to ongoing sea-level rise.
They are thinning and flowing faster, and scientists believe some of them have become unstable.
Routine observation should pick up any sudden changes in behaviour.
The data is currently being gathered by the Sentinel-1a spacecraft, but it will be assisted soon by a sister platform, Sentinel-1b, which the European Space Agency will launch on Friday.
Both have radar instruments that are able to see the glaciers' surfaces day or night, and in all weathers.
They can track activity by keeping a watch on the velocities of crevasses as they move towards the ocean.
The UK's NERC Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM) has just sent live a new web portal that all researchers can access.
Using only Sentinel-1a data for the time being, the service will provide a snapshot of behaviour at least every 12 days. When Sentinel-1b comes online in a few months, the image cycle should improve to once every six days.
"The widespread coverage and short repeat period of Sentinel-1a has revolutionised the way we can observe glaciers around the world," said Dr Anna Hogg from Leeds University.
"This first satellite in Europe's Copernicus programme is a fantastic new resource, and is proving to be a critical tool for monitoring changes in Antarctic and Greenland ice flow. Things will only get better when Sentinel-1b joins the fray."
The intention is to bring more glaciers into the programme over time. This will be easier when 1b is up and working following a period of commissioning.
"The first step is to focus on areas of known dynamical imbalance - and, certainly, these six glaciers are key contributors to sea-level rise," explained CPOM colleague Prof Andrew Shepherd.
"The next step is to expand the service. Future sea-level projections really only allow for imbalance in places we know about today. There are ice streams that may not have activated yet, and that's why we'd like to routinely monitor perhaps 20 to 30 other sectors of Antarctica and Greenland.
"That's our intention, together with Esa as part of their climate change initiative."
An Austrian team is developing a similar service, and here at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly this group, known as ENVEO, showcased some of its own ice velocity maps. It has some very impressive static (averaged over time) renderings of Antarctica and Greenland.
One important difference with ENVEO's near-real-time service when it goes live will be the tools provided to users.
"The amount of data from Sentinel even now is overwhelming, and it makes it quite hard to get the information out that you want," explained Dr Jan Wuite.
"It never used to be a problem but with these maps being produced every 12 days, and soon every six days - it is. That makes it very necessary to get hold of this data with special tools and that's what we're developing."
Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden and Zacharae Isstrom are two big glaciers that enter the ocean next to each other in the northeast of Greenland. Together they make up 12% of the Greenland ice sheet. Zacharae Isstrom hit the headlines in November last year. A report said it had broken loose from a stable position held in 2012 and was now in an accelerated retreat. The northeast of Greenland has only recently attracted attention because the most vulnerable regions of the ice sheet were always considered to be much further south.
Jakobshavn is sited in southwest Greenland. Not only does it move very fast (at times over 17km a year), but it is also retreating rapidly inland, at a rate of many hundreds of metres per year. Periodically, it displays spectacular calving behaviour. Billions of tonnes of icebergs are shed from its front every year and move out of the fjord towards the Atlantic. Jakobshavn is thought to have spawned the big block of ice that sank the Titanic.
Petermann is in the northwest of Greenland. It is another producer of spectacular icebergs. Some are so big they are referred to as "ice islands". In 2010 it produced a block 260 sq km in area. In 2012, a 130-sq-km piece came away. Calving is part of the natural life cycle of ocean-terminating glacier. But ongoing monitoring and in-situ research will establish if any of the drivers are changing, and how.
Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica is contributing more to sea-level rise than any other ice stream on the planet. It drains an area of 160,000 sq km, which is roughly two-thirds the size of the United Kingdom. The geometry of the rock bed under Pine Island makes it unstable, and scientists believe it is now in a self-sustaining retreat that could contribute on the order of perhaps 3.5-10mm to global ocean rise in the next 20 years.
Thwaites Glacier is in the same part of West Antarctica as Pine Island and of similar size. It too has experienced significant retreat since the early 1990s. Its grounding line - the point where its leading front lifts off the bed and floats - has gone backwards some 15km. Continuing retreat will eventually take this line over a sill, which would then expose the deep-seated interior mass of the glacier to a potential runaway collapse.
Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos


Hundreds of people have gathered in Cairo for a candlelit vigil for the victims of last week's EgyptAir crash.

Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathy said it was a mark of respect to the victims and their families.
All 66 people on board Flight MS804 were killed when the plane crashed into the Mediterranean Sea.
A deep-water search to locate the wreckage and the plane's "black boxes" will start in the coming days, France's BEA air safety agency said.
The Airbus A320 was flying overnight from Paris to Cairo when it vanished from Greek and Egyptian radar screens, apparently without having sent a distress call.
Among those on board MS804 were 30 Egyptians, 15 French citizens, two Iraqis, two Canadians and citizens from Algeria, Belgium, Britain, Chad, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Sudan.
They included a boy and two babies as well as seven crew and three security staff.
Debris from the plane has been recovered from the sea, some 290km (180 miles) north of the Egyptian port city of Alexandria.
Egypt's president has said that "all scenarios are possible", but Mr Fathy said last Friday that a terrorist attack was more likely than a technical failure.
Greece's defence minister said on Friday that, after leaving Greek airspace and before it disappeared from Greek radar, the plane abruptly turned 90 degrees left and then 360 degrees to the right, dropping from 11,300m (37,000 ft) to 4,600m (15,000ft) and then 3,000m (10,000ft).
The Aviation Herald also reported that the plane sent a series of warnings indicating that smoke had been detected on board three minutes before it disappeared.
The warnings do not indicate what might have caused the smoke.


A team of tiny robot ants that can work together to pull thousands of times its own weight has been developed at Stanford University.

15 March 2016 Last updated at 16:32 GMT
Researchers have been working on the Tugbots for months, but have just recently focused on making them work as a team to maximise the power they can exert.
Six of the bots - weighing less than 100g (0.22lb) in total - exerted a force of 200 Newtons, which was enough to pull the 1,800kg (220lb) vehicle.


It is hard to know who is winning in Afghanistan.

The government is under immense pressure. Its underpaid and overstretched forces have been on the back foot in their first season without Nato combat support.
They are trying to push the Taliban back, most recently in the key southern province of Helmand - but the way the insurgents took the northern city of Kunduz still weighs on people's minds.
Afghans are watching all this with great concern. It is no surprise that - after Syria - the highest number of migrants in Europe come from Afghanistan.
People here wonder which is the greater gamble - continuing to live in Afghanistan or risking death on the journey out.
In the current climate one group is doing good business: people smugglers. The BBC gained rare access to one - we will call him Abdul (not his real name).
Abdul said a trip out of Afghanistan into Iran, Turkey and ultimately Europe costs between $5,000 and $7,000 (Â£3,250 to Â£4,550).
Abdul gets 10%, the rest goes to other smugglers in the network and pays for transportation. Migrants pay a deposit and their families pay the balance when they reach their destination.
The journey is fraught with danger, something Abdul said he did not hide.
"The most dangerous part is between Turkey and Greece. People get shot by police and sometimes the boats capsize. But Allah guarantees safety, not me," he said.
People from all walks of life and various parts of the country seek him out, he said, but he will not take them if they are unhealthy, too old, with small children or pregnant.
Abdul seems conflicted about what he does - he feels he is helping people, but also acknowledges he is taking their money and sending them to an uncertain fate.
"I smuggled my own three sons. I miss them a lot and I get upset when I see parents crying. I don't like my job very much you know. I feel guilty sometimes," he said.
Standing outside the passport office on a chilly Kabul morning, it is easy to see why people like Abdul are in business.
Queues have already started forming. People crouch on car bonnets filling in forms. Everyone wants to leave - and most don't want to come back.
Arif Mohamady, in his late 20s, is angry and frustrated.
"There are no jobs here, no security and lots of corruption. I'd rather live in an infidel country," he said.
"In 2007 my father was killed in a suicide bombing. My mother and brother were killed by the Taliban. I know it's a dangerous journey but I'd rather die on the way than stay in Afghanistan."
Despite the overwhelming sense of despair, some take a more hopeful view.
A group of young people have started a digital campaign called "Afghanistan Needs You".
Shakib Mohsanyar, 23, said they wanted to stop the brain drain, while Sharam Gulzad, 26, said many Afghans had unrealistic expectations about life abroad.
"I was in Germany and I saw Afghans begging for the first time there. It was heartbreaking. People think once they arrive things will get better. They won't," he said.
Both acknowledged that the problems of corruption, lack of jobs and insecurity are all too real.
"When you go out in the morning you don't know if you're coming back home in the evening," said Mr Gulzad.
"But this is the risk we take. We do have potential. This is not the end of Afghanistan. If we take responsibility and action we will change this country."


Japan's parliament has approved Haruhiko Kuroda as governor of the Bank of Japan, who is expected to push for monetary stimulus to boost growth in the world's third-largest economy.

The upper house cleared Mr Kuroda after he won approval from the lower house on Thursday.
Mr Kuroda has said he will do whatever it takes to bring inflation up to 2%.
Japan has seen 20 years of intermittent falling consumer prices, which analysts say has hurt its economy.
The upper house also voted to approve the appointment of Kikuo Iwata and Hiroshi Nakaso as deputies to Mr Kuroda, who is leaving his current job as president of the Asian Development Bank.
All three were nominated by new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who came into office on the promise of bringing Japan's economy out of its prolonged slump.
Mr Kuroda, who has long been a critic of the central bank's policies, is a supporter of Mr Abe's plan to ease monetary policy and increase government spending.
"This is kind of an experiment," said Masayuki Kichikawa from Bank of America-Merrill Lynch. "It's worth trying," he adds.
Mr Kuroda and Mr Iwata have said they are in favour of buying government debt with longer maturities in order to achieve the central bank's new inflation target of 2%.
Deflation, or falling prices, discourages investment and spending by businesses and consumers, and makes debts more difficult to repay.
The three will take control of the central bank after current governor, Masaaki Shirakawa, steps down on 19 March.
Mr Kuroda's stance marks a stark contrast to that of Mr Shirakawa, who was not a proponent of aggressive monetary easing.
In the run-up to the change of the leadership, the Japanese economy has been showing positive signs.
The yen has fallen more than 20% against the US dollar, which is a relief for exporters. A strong yen makes them less competitive abroad.
The stock market has also surged, with the benchmark Nikkei 225 index rising 27% in the last three months.
The economy expanded slightly in the last quarter of 2012, instead of an expected shrinking, as Japan emerged from its latest recession.