A flight from London was forced to land after a warning to the pilot.
The Eastern Airways Flight EZE58LN originally took off from London Gatwick, but was forced to divert and land at Exeter Airport after a cockpit warning light was activated.
A map of the flight route shows the moment the plane bound from Gatwick to Newquay suddenly and dramatically turned around. The plane was due to leave Gatwick at around 6:50pm, but the departure from London was delayed until 7:59pm.
A distress call, known as 'squawking' was communicated to air traffic controllers during the flight. Flight Emergency Alerts, a service that tweets about aviation emergencies ranging from standard alerts to hijack situations, reported: "#EZE58LN is squawking 7700 (General Emergency)."
The flight trajectory shows that the aircraft reached the vicinity of St Columb Major before it rerouted to Exeter Airport. It was later established that the detour was a safety measure due to a flap configuration issue - referring to the adjustable parts on the wings that control lift and drag. All passengers were transported back to Newquay Airport by road.
A representative for Eastern Airways stated: "A scheduled service operated by Eastern Airways as the T3 458 from London Gatwick Airport to Newquay airport had to make a precautionary diversion into Exeter Airport last night. During the approach into Newquay on one of our ATR 72-600s, a cockpit warning light illuminated for a flap configuration issue.
"Due to the strong and gusting winds at Newquay airport, a decision was made to land at Exeter Airport instead where the wind was not as strong. When the aircraft flew towards Exeter Airport the warning light extinguished, and the aircraft made a normal and safe landing. The passengers were then transported by road to Newquay whilst the aircraft underwent engineering checks as a precaution.
"The aircraft will not be released back into service until the cause of the spurious warning light has been identified. We would like to apologise to our customers who were affected by this diversion but reassure everyone that safety is always our top priority at Eastern Airways."
It comes after figures revealed the closure of Heathrow Airport on March 21 disrupted over 270,000 journeys.
Some 234,000 passengers booked to fly to or from Heathrow had their flight cancelled, diverted or delayed when the airport suffered a power outage because of a fire at a nearby electricity substation, aviation industry statistics seen by the PA news agency show.
No flights were permitted at the airport on that day until around 6pm.
A further 36,500 people hoping to travel the following day were affected when 74 flights, 6.1% of the total scheduled, were cancelled.
The airport said it was “open and fully operational” on that day but many aircraft and flight crews were out of position.
The Metropolitan Police said in March the blaze at the substation in Hayes, west London is no longer being treated as a “potentially criminal matter”, adding that officers found “no evidence to suggest that the incident was suspicious in nature”.
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