British Airways flight 2605 from Naples landed at the Sussex hub shortly before 1am after declaring an emergency and came to a halt on the runway for an inspection, the Press Association reports.
An easyJet service from Paphos and a Tui flight from Lanarca had to be diverted before Gatwick was able to open its standby runway.
BA later confirmed the flight deck had requested priority landing after the Airbus A320 aircraft developed a technical fault.
No-one was hurt and passengers disembarked a short time later.
