A BRITISH Airways business class plane was left stranded in Ireland after engineers downloaded the wrong map.

Bungling BA engineers assumed the New York-bound BA1 flight was headed for Europe as it was a small A318 Airbus.

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But the plane was actually the all-business London City - JFK service that runs once a day.

It is the only A318 that makes the transatlantic crossing.

The flight stops in Ireland to fuel up and for passengers to pre-clear US immigration before heading on to New York.

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But on Friday pilots stopped off in Shannon, Ireland and realised only Europe maps had been loaded on the aircraft.

Crew tried to download the correct mapping data but were unable to, leaving a couple of dozen passengers stranded in Shannon.

British Airways put the passengers up in a hotel overnight and it eventually set off the next day.

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While stuck on the ground in Shannon, one passenger said: "Trying to find a way to explain this rather funny situation!!...

"We can't fly back to city as we have too much fuel, we can't fly to JFK as we have no map... So we are all stranded in Limerick Ireland!!!"

A British Airways spokesman said: "We apologised to customers and provided them with accommodation following an overnight delay to their flight."

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