British Airways flight makes chaotic emergency landing as passengers 'inhale smoke'

A British Airways flight was forced to make an emergency landing on Thursday after passengers 'inhaled smoke'.The Airbus A320 was on its way from Istanbul to London when it had to make the diversion.

The BA603 flight, carrying 142 passengers, requested the landing at Bucharest Henri Coanda International Airport at 5.50pm local time. It touched down soon after at 6.14pm and medical crews quickly boarded the plane to attend to the four that had fallen ill.

Romania's Ministry of Health later said in a statement that immediately after the plane landed "the presence of smoke was confirmed" and everyone on board was evacuated.

The ministry said: "Four people are in poor health, possibly being smoke-intoxicated, and are receiving medical assistance on site". But it added later that the people did "not require medical care".

The mirror reports, a British Airways spokesperson said: "The aircraft landed safely and customers disembarked as normal. We're sorry to our customers for the disruption to their journeys and our teams are working to get them on their way again as quickly as possible...the safety of our customers and colleagues is always our top priority and our crew made the decision to divert as a precaution due to a suspected technical issue.

"We received no reports of smoke on board or hospitalisations."

The airline's flight status page showed Flight BA603 had been diverted, with the message: "We're very sorry, this flight scheduled from Istanbul to London, has been diverted to Bucharest."

A route tracker on the website FlightAware showed the twin-engined aircraft diverting to Bucharest earlier today.

Meanwhile, a United Airlines plane was forced to make an emergency landing after smoke reportedly filled the cabin mid-flight. Emergency services scrambled to Heathrow Airport after flight UA949 ditched its flight to San Francisco and returned to London's Heathrow Airport on July 30. Police cars and an ambulance were pictured on the runway.

The United Airlines flight took off from the London airport at 12:23pm and the plane was heading to San Francisco when flight tracking data showed it turn back near Milton Keynes.

The Boeing 777-200 appears to have stopped climbing at 15,000ft before returning. United Airlines told Air Live the maintenance team needs to evaluate a technical issue on the plane before a new departure. The plane was escorted to the gate by three fire trucks.