London Heathrow to Hong Kong flight makes emergency landing in Siberia after ‘FIRE’ detected on board

A PASSENGER jet from Heathrow to Hong Kong made an emergency landing in eastern Russia early today after reports of "smoke" in the aircraft.

The Cathay Pacific Boeing-777 diverted to Novosibirsk in Siberia six hours into the flight as the crew responded to an on-board alarm.

Michael Ots, from Bournemouth, tweeted a picture of the snow-covered runway after flight CX250 landed at Tolmachevo International Airport at 0.20am UK time.

He said passengers were told there was smoke or fire somewhere in the hold, adding: "Thankful to be safe. Wasn't expecting to end up in #Siberia."

Michael told the Sun Online: "Basically everyone was asleep with nothing unusual. First thing we noticed was that the cabin crew were running around very frantically.

"Obviously everyone wakes up pretty fast when that happens. The pilot announced we were making a 'precautionary landing due to a technical issue'.