Overheated passengers on plane in Brazil stuck on runway open emergency exits

Brazilian news media say passengers trapped in a plane without air conditioning in the brutal heat of the southern hemisphere summer opened the emergency exit doors to get some relief.

Globo television network broadcast videos shot inside the plane that show overheated passengers fanning themselves before deciding to open the emergency exits.

The 130 passengers on Sunday's flight from Rio de Janeiro to Sao Paulo were trapped inside the jet on a runway for an hour.

The Brazilian airline Gol said in a statement on Monday the air conditioning units used on the ground were defective.

The airline eventually moved the passengers onto another jet. It says "no measures were spared to minimise the discomfort to passengers".

The incident in Brazil comes in the same month that angry Chinese passengers on a China Eastern Airlines flight to Beijing yanked open three emergency exits when their flight from Kunming was delayed on the tarmac.