This picture (file) shows what was missing when the BA flight returned to London Heathrow during the flight. Photo by Twitter user @airlivenet

Jammed landing gear caused a British Airways plane to land on its nose and body wheels, a full investigation has found.

The British Airways flight from London to Chicago in January turned back two hours in after a technical problem.

Upon approaching Heathrow, it became apparent that the landing gear had failed.

After dumping fuel and circling the airport for twenty minutes, the Boeing 747 was successfully landed with just the wheels on its nose and body, to the relief of over 300 onboard. No injuries were reported.

Just three sets of the five sets of wheels descended. The plane travelled the entire length of the runway due to a lack of braking power.

Passengers were told "not to rock the plane" as they descended off it, as airline staff feared the plane could topple over on the runway.

"After the aircraft was towed to the apron, passengers were told to disembark very slowly, aft cabin first, otherwise the aircraft would tip over and settle on its tail."

The runway was closed for an hour. Passengers on the flight were delayed for a further nine hours before eventually departing for Chicago.

The formal report into the incident found that a mechanical error due to a new control module led to the fault.

Passenger Kevin Lang told Mailonline that the flight was dramatic.

"The pilot came on and said there was a technical fault and we had to go back to London. He then said they would have to jettison fuel and all the passengers would see this but was reassuring us not be alarmed."

The report noted that the jammed landing gear should have been spotted during maintenance.

"The jammed landing gear lever was attributed to a rig pin not being inserted in the landing gear system during maintenance, which led to additional and unnecessary shims being used to rig the landing gear lever."

It also found "inadequate" handover between the night shift and day shift contributed to the incident.

The Boeing plane is now back in service.