AirAsia flight returns to Malaysia after technical issue

KUALA LUMPUR

An AirAsia X flight headed to Saudi Arabia was forced to turn back to Malaysia due to a technical issue after circling over the Strait of Malacca for around five hours Sunday.

The Jeddah-bound Flight D7172 landed safely at Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 5.40 p.m. (0940GMT) after a technical issue, an AirAsia X official told The Anadolu Agency on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to media.

He did not provide further details on regarding the technical problem.

Meanwhile, the chief of the AirAsia group – of which AirAsia X is the long-haul arm -- said the flight had a normal routine return to the airport.

"It could have continue [its journey] to Jeddah, but we felt it was better for it to return, nothing out of the normal," Tony Fernandes told Malaysia’s national news agency Bernama.

After the flight landed, all 371 passengers on board were transferred to a new aircraft that took off at 7.23 p.m., according to the unnamed official.

FlightRadar24, a flight tracking service site, explained that there had been no emergency on the flight, which had been burning fuel in order to “get weight down to make a safe landing.”  

Fairuz Majid, AirAsia X head of marketing and communications, said in a statement, "As a safety precaution, and in full compliance with all international security and safety standards, the aircraft made a turn-back.”

The incident comes six weeks after AirAsia Flight QZ8501crashed into the Java Sea with 162 people on board on the way from Surabaya -- Indonesia’s second largest city -- to Singapore. As of Saturday, rescue teams had recovered the bodies of 100 victims.

The loss of Flight QZ8501was the third major air disaster to hit Southeast Asia last year. In March, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 went missing en route to Beijing with 239 aboard and four months later, Flight MH17 crashed in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, killing all 298 aboard.