A woman's attempt to cover up the nasty smell of her own flatulence caused an aircraft en route between Washington DC and Dallas to make an emergency landing, the BBC reports.

Passengers kicked up a stink when they caught a whiff of sulphur from burning matches and alerted cabin crew. The American Airlines plane was forced to divert to Nashville where all 99 passengers were evacuated.

Bomb-sniffing dogs found the offending matches on the seat of the woman, who admitted she'd lit the matches to mask the smell of her own bomb.

AP said the woman had a medical condition.

The FBI questioned the passenger, but she was released without charge. While it is legal to bring safety matches onto an aircraft, it is illegal to strike one.

It's not the first time the trouser burp has been implicated in an aircraft scare. Back in 2003 a novelty farting dog sparked a US terror alert when its "wind-breaking mechanism registered as a high explosive on sensitive monitoring equipment". ®