A Malaysian Airlines (MAS) flight from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur was forced to make an emergency landing in remote outback Australia after running into “technical difficulties”.

All 200 or so passengers on MH122 were reported safe after the Airbus A330-300 was diverted to Alice Springs in the Northern Territory after suffering a fault in one engine.

Passengers took to Twitter to report a “loud disturbing noise” from one of the engines.

In a statement, MAS said: “Safety was not at any time compromised and the commanding captain decided to divert the flight for technical assistance.”

The airline said the passengers would be transferred from Alice Springs to Kuala Lumpur on flight MH148 today.

Reuters