Emergency services were scrambled at Beijing International Airport (PEK) after smoke started billowing out of an Air China A330.Huge plumes of smoke were seen coming out of the aircraft during a turnaround of flight number CA976 between Singapore and Beijing. While passengers were starting to board the aircraft, believed to be registered B-5958, smoke suddenly started coming out of the cargo compartment.

Passengers and crew safely evacuated the aircraft

As emergency services rushed to the scene, passengers and crew members safely evacuated the aircraft using the jetway.

Passengers who were supposed to fly on the A330 to Tokyo Haneda immediately took to social media, posting shocking videos of the fire on Twitter.

Having had a look at the videos and photos of the incident, it would appear as if the plane may be beyond repair. It looks to have suffered severe damage to the fuselage.

Beijing Airport issued a statement about the incident

Beijing Airport authorities issued a statement confirming that it was a storage unit aboard the aircraft that was on fire.

The statement reads: "After discussions with the airport staff, it is understood that there are no flames detected on the plane.

"There are no passengers on board.

"We have activated certain protocols to handle the situation. The airport is now running on a normal schedule."

Air China confirmed the incident on Weibo

Air China also confirmed the incident on the Chinese version of Twitter called Weibo that said the following: "Smoke was detected during boarding in the storage unit of flight CA183, which is set to fly from Beijing to Tokyo."

"Crew members and airport staff have successfully put out the smoke. We are investigating the cause of the incident."

This remains a breaking story which we will update as soon as we receive more news.