Berlin - A British Airways plane made an unscheduled landing on Sunday at Berlin's Schoenefeld Airport after a cockpit instrument indicated a problem, German federal police said.

The 220 passengers and 16 crew walked off the Boeing 777 so technicians could check it.

The pilot decided to land the plane, which was flying from London to New Delhi, because of the instrument warning, air traffic control officials confirmed. They denied a radio station claim there had been smoke in the plane.

The jet had previously made a stopover in the German city of Hamburg, police said.

Air traffic control said it was not an emergency landing but "a stopover for technical reasons."

While police had spoken of a Boeing 767, controllers said it was in fact a 777. The airport put 140 firefighters as well as emergency crews on standby before the landing.