A Boeing 737 passenger plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Japan and evacuate everyone on board due to a suspected fire, Japanese authorities have said.
The United Airlines flight from Tokyo’s Narita Airport to Cebu in the Phillipines was forced to divert to Kansai Airport, near Osaka, at 7pm local time today.
It reportedly declared an emergency while flying over Japan’s Pacific coast.
According to Japanese news broadcaster NHK, an alert went off in the cockpit indicating a fire in the plane’s cargo compartment.
Footage from Japanese news broadcasters showed passengers evacuating the jet using its emergency slides to get down from the exit doors.
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It’s not clear whether anyone was injured or if a fire was confirmed to have broken out.
United Airlines said all passengers were evacuated.
Both runways at Kansai were closed for safety reasons in the wake of the incident.
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