Loke said he received a preliminary report on the incident last night and that the airline would issue a statement on the matter soon.

“Any emergency landing will be investigated by our aviation authorities,” he told reporters after visiting the Rapid Bus building in Cheras, where 300 on-demand vans were received to enhance first-and last-mile transport to LRT and MRT stations in the Klang Valley and Penang.

Also present was finance minister II Amir Hamzah Azizan.

“At this point, I don’t want to pre-empt anything. Let the authorities investigate as per the normal procedure,” Loke said.

AirAsia flight AK128, an Airbus A320-216 bound for Shenzhen, China, was forced to make an emergency landing at KLIA2 just after midnight due to a fire which ignited in its right engine mid-flight.

Selangor fire and rescue department assistant director (operations) Ahmad Mukhlis Mukhtar said they received a distress call at 10.37pm and immediately deployed nine personnel and a fire engine to the airport’s Runway 3.

He said the AirAsia flight, which took off at 9.59pm, successfully landed at 12.08am.

All 171 passengers and crew were reported safe.