Pilots were forced to manually take control of an Edinburgh-bound plane full of passengers after systems on board failed.

An Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) report, published on Thursday, found the Boeing aircraft's attitude display malfunctioned shortly after take off from Porto in Portugal on October 9, 2018.

It wrongly said the plane was closer to the North Pole than its actual destination.

There were six crew and 177 passengers on board.

The fault affected aircraft systems which led to the plane climbing 600ft, leaving its planned cruise altitude.

The crew followed instructions in the Quick Reference Handbook (QRH) but false information continued to be displayed to the pilot.

The team considered diverting to an alternative airport but as the plane was under control in manual flight, the decision was made to continue to Edinburgh where the aircraft landed safely.

The AAIB recommended that Boeing Commercial Aircraft amend the Boeing 737 QRH to include a "non-normal checklist for situations when pitch and roll comparator annunciations appear on the attitude display".

Boeing has amended the QRH checklist for this type of system fault.