A British Airways flight from South Africa to Heathrow had to turn back two hours into its journey because the toilets weren’t working.

Andy Sharples, franchisee owner of Cruise Holidays UK in Rochdale, who was on the flight, posted on Travel Gossip’s Facebook page on Sunday just after 8pm to say: “If anyone has clients on BA flight BA0058 (I’m on it!) from Cape Town to Heathrow, just to let you know 2 hours after leaving Cape Town the plane has had to return to Cape Town as the toilets aren’t working.

“We are now back in Cape Town, the problem has been fixed. Now waiting for a slot from Heathrow so we can set off again.”

Andy told Travel Gossip the flight landed at 8.30am on Monday morning, just less than four hours later than scheduled.

He missed his original connection to Manchester but BA put him on a mid-morning flight.

BA told Travel Gossip: “The aircraft returned to Cape Town as a precaution due to a technical issue with the aircraft. The issue was rectified on the ground and the aircraft re-departed.

“We apologised to customers for the inconvenience caused.”