According to posts on Twitter, the flight made an emergency landing after reports from passengers of a fire that broke out on board.

“All the passengers were transported to a bus by the French police”, said one of the posts where there were also images of the plane that was met by several firefighting vehicles.

According to the portal FlightAware, the flight departed at 18:33 from Manchester and was scheduled to arrive at 21:30 in Faro.

However, according to the same website, the plane made an abrupt descent from about 40,000 feet to 6,725 feet in seven minutes, landing in Brest, in western France, at 19:30.