A TUI flight travelling to the Portuguese region of Madeira was circling over Merseyside on Friday afternoon.
The Boeing 737 set off from Manchester Airport en route to Funchal just before 3pm when it encountered a technical problem.
According to Flight Radar , the aircraft climbed as expected over Chester but made a sharp right turn over the Dee estuary.
It then circled over the Wirral before making tracks for Manchester Airport after flying over Liverpool at about 6,000ft.
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North Wales Live reported that the aircraft landed on the southerly runway at Manchester Airport and taxied back to Terminal 2.
According to a passenger on board the TUI Boeing 737 a bee got stuck in a piece of equipment in the nose cone.
Writing on Facebook, Malcolm Connah explained how the piece of equipment is the part that measures the airspeed of the plane.
In his post he said: "I'm on it, landed now nervy stuff."
"A bee in the tube that measures air speed caused a fault."
A new part was being fitted to the aircraft and passengers were being served with glasses of water.
The TUI flight had already made an uneventful flight to Venice and return before it was scheduled to depart for a third trip at 2.25pm.
However, there was a slight delay and the aircraft only took-off at 2.54pm with a scheduled arrival of 6.20pm.
