A British Airways flight from Heathrow to Canada was forced to make an emergency landing last night after smoke and fumes was reported in the cockpit.
The plane, carrying around 200 passengers, “was almost six hours into the eight-hour flight” when it was diverted, says The Sun.
Flight BA103 had departed London at 6.30pm and was due to land at Calgary International Airport, in Alberta, at 8.15pm local time (12.15am GMT). But instead, it was diverted to an airport in the remote Canadian city of Iqaluit, where fire crews rushed to the runway.
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Video footage “showed emergency vehicles surrounding the flight after it landed”, says the Daily Mirror.
Canadian media said the plane’s pilots wore oxygen masks as they landed at Iqaluit Airport, on Baffin Island in the Nunavit terrority.
Aviation journalist Tom Podolec tweeted: “Burning smell/fumes in cockpit. Pilots wore oxygen masks. A passenger had a sore arm; treated by medics.”
Iqaluit Airport “primarily serves domestic flights, but over the years there have been a number of emergency landings from international flights, or stopovers for flights that needed to refuel”, says CBC News.
According to local newspaper Nunatsiaq News, passengers on the diverted BA plane were taken to hotels on school buses, before boarding a replacement aircraft to Calgary this morning.
In an emailed statement to the paper, BA said: “We are very sorry for the delays to customers’ travel plans as a result of a technical fault with one of our aircraft.
“We are caring for the affected customers. The safety of our customers and crew is always our top priority and we would never operate a flight unless it was safe to do so.”
