A British Airways Concorde on a flight to New York had to return and land in London shortly after take-off following a engine problems, BA said.

The British Airways flight BA 001 took off from Heathrow on Monday morning and was one-and-a-half hours into the flight when the captain decided to return to Heathrow as a precaution.

One of the plane's four engines experienced an engine surge - "in layman's terms like a car backfiring", said BA - and the captain took the decision to return to Heathrow.

"It is perfectly safe to fly across the Atlantic on three engines," said the spokeswoman, "but obviously not to fly supersonically."

"The 50 passengers were never in any danger and they have now been transferred to a 777 aircraft which will leave for New York at 1635 BST."

'Airborne return'

The plane had taken off from Heathrow at 1105 BST, and arrived back at 1406BST.

BA said the incident was classified as an "airborne return".

Engineers on the ground are now examining the supersonic jet, but British Airways says the problem was caused by a temporary increase in power to one of the engines.

BA stressed that this could happen to any aircraft.

A spokesman said it was "fairly routine" and was not peculiar to Concorde.

Two years ago, an Air France Concorde crashed near Paris, killing 113 people and halting all Concorde flights for more than a year.

Both BA and Air France resumed Concorde flights in November last year.