HONG KONG (Reuters) - A Malaysia
Airlines flight carrying 271 people from Malaysia to South Korea on
Monday was forced to make an unscheduled landing in Hong Kong after a
technical fault involving an onboard generator, the airline said.
The incident early on Monday came
as 26 countries search remote waters off Western Australia for a
separate Malaysia Airlines jetliner, MH370, missing with 239 people on
board for more than two weeks.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370
vanished from civilian radar screens less than an hour after taking off
from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing on March 8.
Flight MH066 departed from Kuala
Lumpur at 11.37 p.m. bound for Seoul's Incheon airport. The flight,
however, was diverted to Hong Kong's international airport where it
landed safely at around 3 a.m., the airline said.
Malaysia Airlines said the Airbus
A330-300 jet was diverted because of an inoperative generator. There
was no loss of power because an auxiliary generator took over.
All 271 passengers were
transferred to other carriers, the airline said, while the return flight
from Incheon to Kuala Lumpur was canceled. Passengers have been
transferred to other flights for the return leg.
A spokeswoman for the Hong Kong
airport said the plane landed safely less than 30 minutes after it
notified the airport. She said it was not classified as an emergency
landing, although emergency services were put on standby.
