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Malaysia
Airline flight MH192 is seen on the tamrac after an emergency
landing at the
Sepang International Airport, outside Kuala Lumpur on April 21, 2014
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A Malaysia
Airlines plane with 166 people aboard was forced to make an emergency landing
in Kuala Lumpur early Monday in another blow to its safety image after the loss
of flight MH370.
Flight
MH192, bound for Bangalore, India, turned back to Kuala Lumpur after it was
discovered that a tyre had burst on take-off, the airline said.
"As
safety is of utmost priority to Malaysia Airlines, the aircraft was required to
turn back to KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport)," the airline said
in a statement.
The plane
landed safely at 1:56 am (1756 GMT), nearly four hours after it took off, the
flag carrier said.
"All
159 passengers and 7 crew members on board have disembarked from the
aircraft."
The airline
said tyre debris discovered on the runway had led to the decision to bring the
Boeing 737-800 aircraft back.
"They
have landed safely -- thank God," tweeted Transport Minister Hishammuddin
Hussein, who is overseeing Malaysia's response to MH370.
The airline
is still reeling from the loss and presumed crash of flight MH370, which
disappeared March 8 while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
MH370
inexplicably diverted and is now believed to have crashed into the remote
Indian Ocean with 239 people aboard.
Hishammuddin
had tweeted that MH192 went into a holding pattern as other reports quoted
officials saying it would only be allowed to land once all of its fuel had been
burned off.
MH192's
passengers would be accommodated in local hotels and the flight was re-timed to
take off at 3:30 pm local time on Monday, the airline said.
Malaysia
Airlines had previously enjoyed a good safety record, as did the Boeing 777
aircraft used for MH370.
An
Australian-led multi-nation search effort is now scouring a remote area of the
Indian Ocean for wreckage from flight MH370 in a bid to confirm its fate and
hopefully recover the flight data recorders to determine what happened to it.
No surface
debris has been found despite a month of searching, but search crews had
earlier picked up signals believed to be from the beacons of the plane's data
recorders.
A US Navy
submersible sonar scanning device is now being deployed to look for wreckage on
the seabed at depths of around 4,500 metres (15,000 feet) or more.
Nothing has
yet been found and authorities have indicated they may reassess within days how
to approach the extremely challenging search -- expected to be the costliest in
aviation history with estimates of more than $100 million.
Malaysia's
government and the airline have come under harsh criticism from Chinese
relatives of MH370 passengers -- two thirds of its 227 passengers were from
China -- who have alleged a bungling response and cover-up.
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