On the heels of the recent disappearance of MH370 flight, a South Korean-bound Malaysia Airlines flight experienced a technical fault involving an onboard generator, prompting the plane to make an emergency landing in Hong Kong on early Monday, CNN reported.
The Malaysia Airlines Flight 066, carrying 271 passengers, was forced to change course due to "an inoperative aircraft generator, which supplies normal electrical power," the company said. The flight's auxiliary power unit was responsible in supplying constant electrical power for the safe landing.
Landing safely in Hong Kong around 3 a.m., passengers on board were later transferred to different airline flights.
At 11:37 p.m., flight MHO66 set off from Kuala Lumpur on Sunday bound for arrival at Seoul's Incheon airport at 6:50 a.m. Monday, according to Reuters.
"Hong Kong airport said it received a call at 2:30 a.m. alerting it of the flight's urgent change of course and placed local teams on standby," CNN reported. "The plane made its emergency landing without any problems about half an hour later."
Malaysian Airlines said that the scheduled return flight from Incheon to Kuala Lumpur was canceled.
After the Incheon International Airport, the main airport serving the South Korean capital, Seoul, was notified about the flight's diversion, the Malaysian Airlines 066 landed safely, a spokeswoman for the Hong Kong airport said. However, even though emergency services were put into action, the spokeswoman refused to classify the incident as an emergency landing, CNN reported.
Since more than two weeks, Malaysia Airlines jetliner, MH370, with 239 people on board, has gone missing with as many as 26 countries involved in searching the disappearance of the flight. Headed to Beijing, Flight 370 was on its way from Kuala Lumpur when it suddenly vanished over Southeast Asia.
On Monday, the missing Malaysia Airlines plane was announced to have plunged into a remote corner of the Indian Ocean by the Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak after new indications of satellite data analysis, the Associated Press reported.
