Flights had to be diverted at Gatwick Airport after a plane was forced to make an emergency landing.

The British Airways flight from Naples landed at the West Sussex airport at about 12.30am on Friday after an emergency was declared.

The airport said unspecified technical problems were being investigated, and that the plane had been inspected while on the runway.

An easyJet service from Paphos and a TUI flight from Lanarca were diverted to other airports before Gatwick’s stand-by runway was opened.

No-one was injured in the incident and passengers were able to disembark from the plane a short time later.

A spokeswoman for Gatwick Airport said: “A British Airways flight that was inbound from Naples to London Gatwick landed with a technical fault, which resulted in the aircraft stopping on the runway whilst an inspection of the aircraft took place.

“During this time, our runway remained temporarily unavailable while we switched over to our stand-by runway.

“As a result of the runway being unavailable, a number of aircraft diverted away from Gatwick.”

A spokeswoman for British Airways added: “Our flight landed safely after our pilots requested a priority landing as a precaution after a technical fault.

“The safety of our customers and crew is always our top priority, and our engineers are currently conducting a thorough check of the aircraft.”