PETALING JAYA: A Tokyo-bound Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight is reported to have been forced to return to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) 50 minutes after departure due to safety reasons.

According to a report on an online portal, MH70 departed from KLIA for Tokyo’s Narita Airport at 10.50am, Saturday and that upon the aircraft’s return to KLIA, passengers were told that their flight had been rescheduled to 1.15pm on a different aircraft.

The MAS website lists the MH70 as having left KLIA at 1.22pm. It arrive in Tokyo at 8.44pm Malaysian time.

The airline could not be reached for comment.

MAS has been in the spotlight this year following two aviation tragedies – the disappearance of flight MH370 on March 8, and the crash of MH17 on July 17.

MH 370 carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, left the KLIA at 12.41am on March 8 and disappeared from radar screens about an hour later, while over the South China Sea. It was to have arrived in Beijing at 6.30am on the same day.

A multinational search was mounted for the aircraft, first in the South China Sea and then, after it was learned that the plane had veered off course, along two corridors – the northern corridor stretching from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand and the southern corridor, from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.

MH17, a Boeing 777-200ER airliner was shot down while on a scheduled flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

The crash, which killed all 298 on board is believed to have been caused by a Buk surface to air missile.