A flight full of North East holidaymakers jetting off for Kos was forced to turn around after an hour in the air after a technical fault.

The flight, codenamed TOM9JD, took off from Newcastle Airport at about 7.30pm on Wednesday (July 17) headed for the Greek island of Kos.

But the plane then turned around over Germany and began to return to the UK.

After circling for a short while over the North West it came to land at Manchester Airport at about 8.40pm.

The plane, a Boeing 737-800 is understood to have experienced a technical fault but has since been repaired and operated more flights, flight tracking data shows.

Passengers had a 24-hour delay to their holiday and were put on a new plane the next day to take them to Kos.

Reports on social media suggested a medical emergency had taken place and the plane was met by paramedics, but this was not the case, TUI confirmed.

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A TUI spokesperson said: “We’d like to sincerely apologise to passengers who were impacted by the diversion of delayed flight TOM9JD from Newcastle to Kos on July 17, which had to divert to Manchester due to a technical issue.

“The flight departed 24 hours later on July 18 on a different aircraft.

“We completely understand that diversions and delays of this nature are frustrating and it's not how we want our customers’ holidays to begin or end. We would like to thank customers for their patience and understanding.”