There was an emergency aircraft landing at Canberra Airport 44 years ago after the engine of a plane caught alight.

A Boeing 747B international airliner was carrying with 118 passengers and 18 crew aboard when it landed.

The inner port engine of the Alitalia aircraft was gushing smoke as the machine landed. When firemen from the Department of Transport removed the cowling of the damaged engine, it burst into flames.

They used carbon-dioxide extinguishers to put the fire out. Molten metal dripped from the engine as the fire was brought under control.

Passengers were quickly evacuated to the VIP lounge at the RAAF base. Inspection of the engine showed a hole about the size of a dinner plate had burnt through the casing of the main gearbox.

The aircraft was en route from Sydney to Melbourne on the last leg of its flight from Rome when the emergency occurred.

The first officer, Captain Gianfranco Fiandesio, said that about 10 minutes after the aircraft left Sydney, the flight engineer advised that the inner port engine was rapidly losing oil.

"But because it was a short sector we continued the flight," he said.

"This is a completely normal procedure."

After the engine had been turned off, fire warnings had appeared on the control panel. The fire-extinguisher systems to the engine had been activated twice but the warning lamps had stayed on and alarm bells had kept ringing.

Passengers said that they were not aware of the fire until they had landed. They had been told that there had been "technical trouble" and that they had been diverted to Canberra.

"Everyone was calm," said Francis Young who was on board.

"You could see that the precautions were 100 per cent, I felt all right."

See https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/110879247/12376372