British Airways flight 2605 from Naples landed at the Sussex hub shortly before 1am after declaring an emergency and came to a halt on the runway for an inspection, the Press Association reports.

An easyJet service from Paphos and a Tui flight from Lanarca had to be diverted before Gatwick was able to open its standby runway.

BA later confirmed the flight deck had requested priority landing after the Airbus A320 aircraft developed a technical fault.

No-one was hurt and passengers disembarked a short time later.

A Gatwick spokesperson said: “A British Airways flight inbound from Naples landed with a technical fault, which resulted in the aircraft stopping on the runway while an inspection of took place.

“During this time, our runway remained temporarily unavailable while we switched over to our stand-by runway. As a result, a number of aircraft diverted away from Gatwick.”

A BA spokesperson added: “Our flight landed safely after our pilots requested 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.”