MH19 landed at KLIA after unscheduled landing in India

Malaysia Airlines flight MH19, which reportedly made an unscheduled landing in India early Thursday due to faulty lavatories, landed at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) here this morning.

The airport screen showed that the Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur bound aircraft, which took off at 12.08pm on Wednesday from Amsterdam, landed at 10.37am in KLIA.

Prior to that, the screen showed a remark of flight delay for MH19.

It was scheduled to touch down at KLIA at 6.10am Thursday.

One of the flight passengers when met at KLIA's arrival hall, Hilda Jekel said all the passengers remained calm when the pilot announced on making an unscheduled landing at Chennai International Airport.

Jekel who was travelling with husband Jack Vendenburg to Malaysia for a holiday, said the pilot planned to land at Mumbai International Airport but due to certain circumstances landed at Chennai International Airport instead.

"There was no panic attack among the passengers. However, some of them were complaining about the flight delay.

"We were informed that all six lavatories were functioning when the flight took off. However, three then became inoperable and a few hours later, all six lavatories were inoperable. We had a few more hours to go.

"That's why the pilot decided to make an unscheduled landing," she said.

Jekel said all passengers were seated in the plane while waiting for the lavatories to be fixed for about an hour.

The MH19 is the new call sign for the Malaysia Airlines Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur route after MH17 was retired following the tragedy when it was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, last year, killing all 298 passengers and crew on board.

Malaysia Airlines Bhd (MAB) spokeswoman when contacted said the Boeing 777-200 make an unscheduled landing in Chennai International Airport at 7 am (local time) to fix the lavatories before continuing its journey to Kuala Lumpur.

“It is not an emergency landing but an unscheduled landing for the comfort of the passengers,” she said.

She said the plane was forced to make two wide turns in the India airspace prior landing due to lack of aircraft parking slots and also a standard practice of fuel dumping before unexpected landing.