KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airlines said one of its jets made an unscheduled landing in India at 7am local time Thursday due to broken lavatories while flying the same route as flight MH17, which was shot down over Ukraine last year.
A spokeswoman said MH19 – the new flight code after “MH17” was retired following the tragedy – landed in Chennai on a scheduled flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. “The plane had to land due to inoperable lavatories,” she said. It was to land in Kuala Lumpur later this morning.
The unexpected landing came just two days after the carrier touted the formal launch of a new holding company, Malaysia Airlines Berhad – part of efforts to turn the page on last year’s tragedies. MH17 was blown out of the sky, killing all 298 aboard, by a suspected ground-to-air missile over Ukraine in July 2014. Four months earlier, flight MH370 disappeared with 239 passengers and crew aboard.
Flight-tracking websites showed MH19 making two wide turns over India before landing. The spokeswoman attributed this to a lack of immediate parking slots in Chennai, and the standard practice of burning excess fuel before unexpected landings.-AFP