Malaysia Airlines flight MH066 en route to Incheon diverted to Hong Kong
Yahoo Newsroom – 1 hour 50 minutes ago
STATEMENT BY MALAYSIAN AIRLINES
Malaysia Airlines confirms that flight MH066 from Kuala Lumpur to Incheon on Sunday (March 23, 2014) was diverted to Hong Kong due to an inoperative aircraft generator which supplies normal electrical power. However electrical power continued to be supplied by the Auxiliary Power Unit.
The aircraft was then diverted to Hong Kong for rectification and landed uneventfully.
MH066 operated on the A330-300 aircraft, departed from Kuala Lumpur at 11.37pm and was scheduled to arrive in Incheon at 6.50am local time.
All 271 passengers from M066 have been transferred on other carriers. The return flight MH067 from Incheon to Kuala Lumpur is cancelled and passengers have been transferred on other carriers as well as subsequent Malaysia Airlines flight to Kuala Lumpur.
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A Malaysia Airlines flight from Kuala Lumpur to Incheon Airport in Seoul was forced to make an emergency landing in Hong Kong last night after an electricity generator failed.
Flight MH066 took off from the Malaysian capital at 11.37pm on Sunday and landed at Hong Kong airport at 2.53am Monday morning.
Hong Kong's Civil Aviation Department confirmed the aircraft had experienced problems with its generator.
Fire crews at the airport were put on standby for the arrival of the Airbus 330-300.
A statement from Malaysia Airlines said: "Malaysia Airlines confirms that flight MH066 from Kuala Lumpur to Incheon on 23 March 2014 was diverted to Hong Kong due to an inoperative aircraft generator which supplies normal electrical power.
"However electrical power continued to be supplied by the auxiliary power unit. The aircraft was then diverted to Hong Kong for rectification and landed uneventfully.
"All 271 passengers from MH066 have been transferred on other carriers.
"The return flight MH067 from Incheon to Kuala Lumpur is cancelled and passengers have been transferred on other carriers as well as subsequent Malaysia Airlines flight to Kuala Lumpur."
Dr Steve Thatcher, a senior lecturer of aviation engineering at the University of South Australia, said the generator provides all electrical power for the aircraft.
“Pilots will be told by the computer’s flight management system that there was an error. It depends on what the error is: is it a circuit-breaker that’s gone, is it an overheated power generator unit?
“Every airline for every aircraft has standard operating procedure, and when something happens, they go through the standard operating procedure for that aircraft and the particular incident. Then they would divert to the nearest available aerodrome if its a major incident.”
He added that the pilots would have had shut down the entertainments systems, air conditioning and power in the galley.
Malaysia Airlines fleet of 15 Airbus A330-300Es are only two years old, according to consultant group CAPA Centre for Aviation.
Dr Thatcher said it was not "uncommon" for modern aircraft to have problems early on in its operating life. He said one reason for the Airbus A330 diverting was "they didn't want the second one [the back-up generator] to fail".
On Friday another Malaysia Airlines jet got into trouble after hitting a flock of birds as it landed in the Nepali capital of Kathmandu.
The birds collided with the Boeing 737 as it came in to land, shattering the windshields. the aircraft landed safely and all the 180 passengers and crew on board were safe, said Ratish Chandra Lal Suman, chief of the Civil Aviation Authority Nepal.
Birds hitting aircraft are a common problem at Kathmandu international airport, which is ringed by forested hills.
Suman said the aircraft returned home after the windshields were repaired.
An international search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has entered its third week, with still no confirmed trace of the Boeing 777 that vanished on March 8 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.
