A Malaysia Airlines passenger plane made an emergency landing today in Melbourne, Australia after reporting a possible engine fire.
Flight MH148 had just taken off from Melbourne for the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur when the problem occurred. Fire engines were on site but airport officials said it landed safely at 15:00 local time (05:00 GMT). All 300 passengers disembarked safely at Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport, came a statement from Malaysia Airlines.
A preliminary inspection of the grounded plane showed “no physical evidence of fire externally”, the airline said. The airline also stressed on security as its top priority.
A spokeswoman for Airservices Australia, the government’s aviation safety body, said the plane had reported an “engine fire” alert in the cabin.
“The plane proceeded to dump the fuel and returned to land and it landed safely at the aviation rescue sites,” the woman told Reuters news agency. Officials said this was standard procedure for an emergency landing.
Malaysia Airlines continues to be mired in aviation accidents and public spotlight for the same. Last year, MH370 mysteriously disappeared into the Indian ocean will all 239 passengers and crew on board declared missing. This was followed by flight MH17 shot down by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine, killing all 298 passengers and flight officials.
The twin disasters heavily damaged the already battling business, and earlier this month it announced it was “technically bankrupt”. New CEO Christoph Mueller had laid out his strategy to revive the airlines earlier this year. On Tuesday, he said the airline would relaunch as an “entirely new company”.