Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight carrying 180 passengers from Lahore to Kuala Lumpur made an emergency landing at Jinnah International Airport in Karachi due to the technical fault on Monday (today).
PIA spokesman Danyal Gilani said after the diversion to Karachi, flight PK-898 took-off for Kuala Lumpur at 4:00 am.
“[The flight was] diverted due to technical reasons,” he told media, and did not confirm media reports alleging “hydraulic pipes had burst”.
He said the airline diverted the plane to Karachi instead of landing in KL as it did not want the plane to be stranded in Malaysia. It was diverted to Karachi as a “precautionary measure” because PIA’s engineering maintenance station is situated there, Gilani added.
Upon landing in Karachi, the aircraft was replaced with an alternate plane before the flight took off for the Malaysian capital at 4:00 AM local time.
A map on the plane tracking site FlightAware shows that after taking off from Lahore at 12:56 am, the flight was en route Malaysia over India when it diverted towards Karachi.
As a result of the diversion, the PK-898 which was scheduled to land in Kuala Lumpur at around 10 am landed at 2:14 pm.