WATCH: Terrifying moment plane makes emergency landing after filling with smoke

British tourist Ethan Williams captured the emergency landing on his iPhone

A BRITISH tourist has filmed the terrifying moment his plane made an emergency landing on a remote military base after filling with smoke.

 

Ethan Williams was flying from Hong Kong to Los Angeles when cabin crew told passengers to take their shoes off and put their life jackets on.

So he took out his iPhone and captured the frantic scenes on the Cathay Pacific flight on Wednesday morning.

He said: "OK, so I'm not sure what's happening but there's something going on with this flight all the flight attendants are running around like crazy and all the warning signs are going off.

"We've just had an announcement, we've got an emergency landing. We've not been told what is going on but we've got an emergency landing."

 

After terrified passengers were talked through the brace position, the plane was plunged into darkness.

The jet was then forced to land at Eareckson Air Station, a US air base in Shemya, Alaska – as relieved passengers broke into a round of applause.

Williams said: "We've landed – yes! Still don't know why, but we're down."

 

Shemya is part of the Aleutian Islands – more than 1,400 miles from Alaska's largest city, Anchorage.

A few hours after the incident another plane flew in from Hong Kong to pick up the 276 passengers and 18 crew members.

A Cathay Pacific spokesman said the smoke was created by a cooling fan – but the Boeing 777 was inspected and deemed safe to fly again.

The island base has a 10,000-foot runway, which was developed in the 1940s for bombing missions and repaved in 2010.

In July 2010, an American Airlines jet flying from Dallas to Tokyo made an emergency landing in Shemya after a fire warning light malfunctioned.