Qantas flight from Singapore to London diverted to Azerbaijan

A Qantas flight from Singapore to London carrying over 350 passengers has diverted to Azerbaijan after calling in a major emergency.

A Qantas Airbus A380 has made an emergency landing at the Heydar Aliyev International Airport in Baku, Azerbaijan. Picture: Supplied

Qantas passengers on a flight from Singapore to London face at least one night in Azerbaijan after a mechanical fault on the aircraft.

The airline is looking at sending a replacement plane to Baku after the A380 carrying 356 people was forced to divert.

It followed an intermittent fault indicator warning of smoke in the cargo hold.

After taking precautionary measures the cockpit alert persisted leaving the flight crew with no choice but to make an emergency landing in Baku.

The airline's Airbus A380, en route Singapore-London, requested an emergency landing. Picture: Supplied

Fire and rescue teams met the A380 but there was no fire in the cargo hold.

Engineering support from London was being sourced by Qantas as the airline sought to arrange visas for passengers in order to leave Heydar Aliyev Airport.

Flight QF1 operated by a 13-year-old A380 registered VH-OQH was more than 10 hours into its journey when the diversion to Heydar Aliyev Airport occurred on Friday.

A Qantas spokeswoman said it was impossible to say how long the aircraft would remain in Baku. A flight plan had been lodged for Baku to London with a tentative departure time of 4pm local time, giving engineers more than seven hours to resolve the issue.

In a statement posted to Instagram, Heydar Aliyev Airport said the plane was diverted to Baku due to “smoke generated in the cargo compartment”.

“The plane landed successfully at 7.08 local time. There were no injuries during the accident,” the translated statement read.

There were 356 passengers on board the Qantas flight. Picture: Supplied

“The aircraft is currently being inspected and a complex of necessary measures is being taken to determine all the causes of the incident.”

Azerbaijan is on the border of eastern Europe and western Asia.

In September a Singapore Airlines flight from Paris was diverted to Baku with a technical issue.

It took almost 36 hours until a replacement aircraft arrived and the service was able to resume, putting passengers nearly two days behind schedule.

Qantas has been progressively bringing its A380 fleet back

into service after all 12 superjumbos were mothballed in the California desert during the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Six A380s were expected to be back in the air this year and another four by the end of 2023. The remaining two are being used for parts after being scrapped.

Originally published as Qantas flight from Singapore to London diverted to Azerbaijan