NEW YORK (Reuters) - New Jersey's Newark Liberty International Airport was briefly closed on Monday after a passenger plane made an emergency landing there because of problems with its nose landing gear, a Port Authority spokesman said.

Passengers were forced to evacuate the plane on emergency chutes after the landing, but no injuries were reported among the 71 passengers and crew, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport.

"The airport was briefly shut down," Coleman said, adding that two of three runways were able to reopen within an hour of the landing of the United Express flight from Atlanta to Newark. A third runway remained closed.

Coleman said the National Transportation Safety Board would investigate.

(Reporting By Jonathan Allen; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Greg McCune)