PETALING JAYA: A Malaysia Airlines flight from Kuala Lumpur to Kuantan last night had to abort its landing, returning to KLIA before completing its flight at the second attempt.

The flight eventually landed more than three hours after its scheduled arrival time, minus two passengers who left the aircraft in fear prior to the second takeoff.

MAS flight MH1286 was originally scheduled to depart from KLIA at 10.05pm but was delayed by 33 minutes, for the 45-minute flight.

However, heavy rains and strong winds caused severe turbulence and an aborted landing, forcing the aircraft to return to KLIA.

“It was raining heavily with strong winds. There was very bad turbulence and some passengers were screaming in fear,” a young passenger on board the flight wrote in a WhatsApp message to his father this morning.

Yusri Najmi Yusof, 18, was returning to Kuantan, where he is studying mechatronics and robotics at a college, following the one-week break in conjunction with the Hari Raya Aidiladha and Malaysia Day holidays last week.

Yusri wrote on WhatsApp that the pilot managed to land the plane but “maybe because the pilot could not control the aircraft, the plane took off again”, and headed back to KLIA.

He said the plane landed at KLIA and remained for an hour before taking off.

“Just before it was to depart, two passengers decided to leave the flight, and that delayed the plane from taking off by another 10 minutes,” Yusri said in the WhatsApp message that was shared with FMT.

The pilot then took off for Kuantan a second time and finally landed the plane successfully at 2.20am, more than three hours past its originally scheduled arrival time.

Yusri’s father, Yusof Ghani, had in a Facebook post, thanked the pilots for “keeping everybody safe.”