Plane makes emergency landing after hitting bird

The plane landed an hour after taking off Credit: Port of Seattle

An American Airlines flight carrying 150 passengers was forced to make an emergency landing after hitting a bird causing a huge dent in the plane's nose.

Flight 2310 struck the bird shortly after leaving Seattle-Tacoma International Airport at around 3.36pm on Wednesday, but circled around and then landed again at 4.25pm.

A huge dent was caused in the fuselage but not enough to put the aircraft in danger, according to an airport spokesman.

The pilot told air traffic controllers "looks like we hit some birds after takeoff, we're gonna need to go back and have the airplane looked at", ABC News reported.

On landing, passengers were transferred on to a different aircraft for the journey to Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas.