PASSENGERS on board a flight to Manchester Airport experienced a delay of 25 hours as a result of a technical fault.

The aeroplane had travelled more than 1,400 miles from New York City before the technical issue caused the pilot to about-turn.

The Virgin Atlantic 747-400 had set off at 7.10pm and was nearing Gander, in northeast Canada, when a 'cargo fire alert' appeared.

At this time, the travellers were about two hours into their journey.

Flight VS-128 returned to New York, where passengers were delayed by more than 25 hours overnight on Saturday.

Engineers found there was no fire on board; rather, 'a small error message' had displayed incorrectly. This was fixed after the aircraft landed at JFK airport.

A Virgin Atlantic spokeswoman confirmed the incident.

She said: "Our VS128 flight from New York to Manchester returned to JFK as a precautionary measure, due to a minor technical issue.

"The safety or our customers and crew is always our top priority and after a normal landing, customers were provided with overnight accommodation."

She added: "The flight departed New York 24 hours later and all customers have now completed their journey.

"We'd like to apologise for the disruption to their journey and thank all our customers for their patience."