yesterday as Good Friday storms lashed the Island.

And there were three major power cuts when swirling 50 m.p.h. winds blew kites onto overhead electrical lines.

Duty airport officer Skip Tatem said two US Airways flights and one Delta flight headed home after pilots refused to land in the blustery conditions.

He added: "The services were rescheduled after the pilots decided it would be too dangerous to try to land.

"The pilots all headed back to their points of origin, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Baltimore, and the airlines have advised passengers that there could be long delays before they can land.'' A US Airways spokesman said both services would try to land in Bermuda a second time last night, "weather permitting''.

But it is understood the American Airlines service was rescheduled until later today.

BELCO spokeswoman Linda Smith Wilson said an army of electrical engineers were kept busy because of Easter kite-flying.

She said no overhead cables were brought down by the winds, but several kites became tangled in the wires, causing blackouts.

She added: "The first was at 9 a.m. at Belmont sub-station in Warwick and that affected the Cobbs Hill area.

"Then at around 11, there was an outage at Hermitage Road in Smith's Parish.

And at about 12.30 there was another power cut which affected the service in St. George's.

"Each time, the power was restored within an hour. There were other, shorter outages across the Island but nothing we couldn't take care of.'' A fleet of BELCO trucks toured Bermuda looking for troublespots, added Mrs.

Wilson.

"But there weren't any real problems,'' she said. "In fact, the weather helped because there were fewer kite-fliers than we would normally expect.''