China Southern Airlines has given a $56,700 cash reward to staff for foiling a "terrorist" attack on a domestic flight earlier this month.

Chinese officials said internationally-backed separatists seeking an independent Xinjiang, the largely Muslim region in the northwest, were behind the failed March 7 attack.

The plane cut short its journey from Xinjiang to Beijing and landed in the northwestern city of Lanzhou.

China's aviation regulator, the General Administration of Civil Aviation (CAAC), said the crew had successfully foiled an attack of "malicious political intentions... organised by internationally backed terrorists," in a report posted on its website ( www.caac.gov.cn ).

Officials have not provided a detailed account of the incident. But sources later told Reuters that the chief suspects - a man and a woman - boarded the flight carrying Pakistani passports and drink cans that contained flammable liquids.