SHAH ALAM - Malaysia Airlines has confirmed its MH2664 flight to Tawau had to turn back to Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) due to "technical issues”.
The national carrier said the precautionary measure was carried out after the pilot made a decision to return to Kuala Lumpur in the interest of passenger safety.
"Flight MH2664 from Kuala Lumpur to Tawau on April 3 performed an air turn back due to technical issues with the aircraft, compounded by bad weather en route,” Daily Express, an East Malaysia English daily reported.It said the plane landed safely at KLIA at 5.03pm.
This comes after Halimah Nasoha in a Facebook post said the 2.30pm flight took a "sharp dive" after about 30 minutes take off, the B737-800 fell from 31,000ft to 24,000ft "in a matter of seconds”, based on her checks on the Flight Radar application.
She said she "floated” out of her seat as it was her seat belt was unfastened and the seat belt signs were turned off at that point."The plane was unstable for about 10 minutes and took another dive, but it wasn’t as bad as the first drop,” said
Passengers were screaming and crying, fearing for their lives, she further said.
Halimah said the flight made a U-turn, circled above Melaka a few times and eventually returned to KLIA where she switched flights.She arrived safely in Tawau at about 9.50pm.