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All flights were temporarily suspended at Gatwick Airport this afternoon after a British Airways flight was forced to make an emergency stop on the runway.
The Boeing 777 was seen blocking all other flights from taking off, causing travel chaos for thousands of British holidaymakers.
Video footage taken from passengers on board the flight showed fire engines reaching the stationary vehicle, with passengers being told the take-off had been “aborted”.
Flight G-VIIT BA2279 was scheduled to depart for Vancouver this afternoon before being forced to make a “high speed emergency stop”.
A statement from the airport said the plane was abandoned “due to a departing aircraft that had hot breaks”.
According to travel expert Simon Calder, at least 12 flights were diverted, including an Emirates A380 from Dubai which was forced to land in Brussels instead.
It is not known how many flights in total were affected on the busiest aviation day of the year so far.
According to flight-tracking website Flightradar24, the airport’s runway was forced to close after a “rejected take-off”. The website announced the closure at 12:53 p.m. and the reopening at 1:14 p.m.
“Safety is our highest priority and the airport’s specialist fire service was quickly involved in supporting the aircraft,” the spokesman added. “A number of flights have been diverted. The track is now open and operating as usual.”
A British Airways spokesman said: “Our pilots took the precautionary decision to cancel take-off due to a technical issue.
“Safety is always our top priority and we apologize for any inconvenience caused to customers.”
That means another hiccup this week for families trying to get away for the summer.
Families flying out of Birmingham Airport faced long queues at security, with one passenger describing it as a “health and safety disaster”.
Passengers using the airport have had to wait up to several hours to get through the terminal in recent weeks after the £60m security hall opened.
The new area will eventually allow passengers to leave liquids up to two liters and large electrical items in cabin baggage while going through security, but new government restrictions mean passengers are still limited to only 100ml bottles.
One video taken earlier this week showed a long line of cars waiting to get into the drop off area today. Witness Olly Carruthers said it was “chaos” with the zone “completely broken and backed up”.
Another traveler said he waited more than an hour at 5.30am this morning and still hadn’t got to the lifts to go through security – with 1,000 people queuing.
The airport, which also denied the figure of 1,000 people in the queue, said that between 3.30am and 7.00am staff removed 0.8 tonnes of liquids, pastes and gels in containers that exceeded the 100ml carry-on limit.