A mentally challenged gunman who stormed onto a Canadian charter flight as it prepared to leave Montego Bay in Jamaica has released the aircraft’s passengers but continues to hold its crew hostage.

The man is believed to have got through security at Sangster International Airport using a fake ID and boarded the plane with a handgun as it was preparing to take off at around 2230 local time (0430 GMT).

A total of 182 passengers and crew were onboard the CanJet plane bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia, when the incident began.

All passengers have now been released but the crew remain onboard, a CanJet statement said.

One shot was fired during the takeover but no one is thought to have been harmed. It is unclear what the gunman’s demands are, but negotiations with Jamaican police and the airport authorities are under way.

“Flight 918 was carrying 182 passengers and crew. All passengers have been safely removed from the aircraft, but CanJet crew and the armed man remain on board,” the Canadian charter airline said in a statement.

“Our understanding is that no harm has come to anyone remaining on board,” it added.

A passenger, Brenda Grenier, called her husband from the plane to tell him she had been taken hostage by a man had sneaked aboard the plane.

Mrs Grenier and her daughter were safe, her husband told American broadcaster CNN by phone from his home in Nova Scotia.

Sangster International Airport is one of the most modern in the Caribbean and handles around four million passengers a year.