More than 100 passengers aboard an Air Canada Rouge flight from Regina were likely quite startled on Sunday when their plane was met with a crew of emergency vehicles as soon as it touched down on the runway in Toronto.

Staff on the Airbus A319, which accommodates 130 people on the regular trek between the major Canadian cities, had apparently noticed a strong smell of fuel emanating from the back of the jetliner.

A radio call between the captain and air traffic controllers detailed how they were experiencing issues with the auxiliary power unit (APU) that supports various on-board systems.

"We have an indication with a light on... [and] upon inspecting in the back, we're getting a smell of fuel in the back galley," the pilot can be heard saying in the clip.

"We'd like to request to stop on the runway in Toronto and have emergency vehicles inspect the back before we taxi in."

Emergency crowd surrounding this flight from Regina, emergency landing in Toronto Pearson
byu/CoolCademM intoronto

A video shot by a person who was watching from their gate with alarm shows multiple fire trucks and other first response vehicles following the aircraft with lights flashing as it taxis around the tarmac.

"This was filmed by me literally one minute ago... don't know what went wrong. Still trying to find information on our flight tracker app," the person wrote on Sunday evening.

"All I know is there was a plane that was forced to land unscheduled at Toronto Pearson Airport with emergency vehicles following it."

Others in the comments were able to track down the air traffic control call and deduce that it was flight ACA1924, indeed bound for Toronto from Saskatchewan. One customer detailed how they recently experienced a similar incident on an Air Canada Rouge plane.

"I wonder if this was the plane I was on. Was a similar plane with Rouge and we had an emergency mid-air Thursday and had to turn around and stop on the runway. People also reported smelling fuel," they wrote.

"If they let this thing go back up someone should investigate it. It was Toronto to Deerlake they had emergency vehicles meet us out as well."