A Malaysia Airlines MH780 flight from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok declared an emergency while flying over Songkhla.

 

The flight left its cruising altitude, descended to 10,000 feet, and decided to return to its departure airport.

This is the aircraft involved, an Airbus.

The aircraft sent a transponder squawk code 7700 (general emergency) and made a emergency descent to 10,000 feet, due to a possible cabin depressurisation issue.

The aircraft was cleared for a straight in, priority approach and landed safely. It maintained the emergency squawk code throughout the return flight.

Malaysia airline said.

 

“Flight MH780, an Airbus A330-200, had to return to KLIA after experiencing a pressurisation issue at 5.59pm while en route to the Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok.

The operating pilots initiated an emergency descent although cabin altitude was not exceeded and passenger oxygen masks were not deployed.

 

The aircraft remained stable and landed safely at KLIA at 8.18pm.”

 

https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2024/06/24/bangkok-bound-malaysia-airlines-flight-returns-to-kl/

 

Would it not be much more nearby to then fly to Phuket, if it was an emergency in the first place? It was only 1:10 hours away from BKK? Flying back would be longer?

27 minutes ago, ChaiyaTH said:

Would it not be much more nearby to then fly to Phuket, if it was an emergency in the first place? It was only 1:10 hours away from BKK? Flying back would be longer?

Traffic, I guess.

1 minute ago, Ben Zioner said:

Traffic, I guess.

Weird...

35 minutes ago, ChaiyaTH said:

Would it not be much more nearby to then fly to Phuket, if it was an emergency in the first place? It was only 1:10 hours away from BKK? Flying back would be longer?

Yes plenty of other airports to divert to, if required.

 

My guess would be pilots were concerned when plane suffered some loss of pressurisations, declared emergency as per their checklist, but incident was not a full loss of pressurisation, as oxygen masks were not reported to be deployed.

 

At 10000 feet, flight was stable and safe, so advised to return to home base, as engineers would be available and alternative aircraft to swap the passengers to.

1 minute ago, Georgealbert said:

Yes plenty of other airports to divert to, if required.

 

My guess would be pilots were concerned when plane suffered some loss of pressurisations, declared emergency as per their checklist, but incident was not a full loss of pressurisation, as oxygen masks were not reported to be deployed.

 

At 10000 feet, flight was stable and safe, so advised to return to home base, as engineers would be available and alternative aircraft to swap the passengers to.

Guess that makes sense, they were still far enough away for it to be nearer to KL than BKK, or near enough.

48 minutes ago, ChaiyaTH said:

Would it not be much more nearby to then fly to Phuket, if it was an emergency in the first place? It was only 1:10 hours away from BKK? Flying back would be longer?

If it can fly safely, they like to get 'home' for the maintenance.

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