The London-Beijing flight with 270 passengers and 16 crew landed in Irkutsk, Eastern Siberia, at 10.41 local time on Wednesday.

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Passengers were told there was a malfunction of the flight software on board flight BA 039. The plane landed 40 minutes after the initial request from the pilot to bring the plane down in Irkutsk.

The passengers are being put up in city hotels while the airline arranges their onward travel.

‘The plane made an emergency landing in Irkutsk because of the failure of navigation equipment’, said Yelena Stavitskaya, the Siberian airport’s spokeswoman.

‘Its passengers will be accommodated in hotels Angara and Irkutsk.’

BA technical experts are expected to fly to Irkutsk to assess the damage to the jumbo aircraft. It is expected many passengers will be offered onward travel by S7 – a Siberian airline that is also part of the OneWorld alliance.

The BA website indicated that an onward flight would be available at 21.00 (9pm) local time.