Flights into Gatwick are diverted after plane performs emergency landing at London airport

BA flight from Naples is surrounded by fire engines on the runway at Gatwick Airport after landing having declared an emergency while flying over the English Channel

BA flight BA2605 forced to perform an emergency landing on runway last night
Gatwick Airport spokesperson said plane had suffered technical difficulties in air
Fire crews are surrounding the aircraft on the runway along with engineers
Are YOU at the airport? Contact connor.boyd@mailonline.co.uk

By Connor Boyd For Mailonline

Published: 01:17 BST, 20 July 2018 | Updated: 02:36 BST, 20 July 2018

Hundreds of passengers were left stranded at the wrong airport this morning on Frantic Friday after seven flights into Gatwick were diverted due to an emergency incident.

Four flights were sent to Birmingham, two to Stansted and two to Luton after an Airbus A320 was forced to make an emergency landing at Gatwick after experiencing technical difficulties over the English Channel.

The British Airways flight from Naples performed the emergency manoeuvre just after midnight and was surrounded by fire crews on the tarmac, forcing the closure of the runway.

A British Airways flight from Naples made an emergency landing at Gatwick tonight after experiencing technical difficulties over the English Channel

Fire crews are seen rushing to inspect Flight BA2605, forcing the closure of the runway

While the runway was temporary closed, a standby runway was open. But seven flights were still diverted to airports around the country

Graphic shows fire crews and engineers surrounding the Airbus A320 on the tarmac

The plane made a rapid descent into Gatwick Airport, according to data collected by Flight Radar.

The runway was closed for around two hours and a standby runway was opened during that time.

The runway reopened just after 2am.

A Gatwick spokeswoman said the plane suffered a technical glitch in the air.

She said: ‘Flight BA2605 inbound from Naples to London Gatwick landed with a technical fault, resulting in the aircraft stopping on the runway whilst an inspection of the aircraft took place.

‘During this time, our runway remained temporarily unavailable whilst we switched to our standby runway.

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

Passengers took to Twitter to report that their flights had been diverted to various airports across the country.

Sean Savva, who was flying from Corfu to Gatwick, was on a plane forced to land at Luton. He said: ‘Stranded on an EasyJet plane at London Luton Aiport diverted from Gatwick. No estimated time of arrival?’

Elsewhere, a flight from Dalaman, Turkey, was forced to land at Birmingham Airport.