KUALA LUMPUR - Passengers and crew aboard a Malaysia Airlines flight from Adelaide to Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday had a scare when the aircraft was instructed to discontinue its takeoff to avoid colliding with an incoming flight, Malaysia's New Straits Times has reported.

The MH136 flight, which had 167 passengers, was already on the take-off roll when it received instructions from the Adelaide Air Traffic Control to stop, reported the newspaper.

The NST said the landing plane was in the same flight path as the Malaysia Airlines jetliner.

"MH136 stopped its takeoff safely and waited the required cool-down time on its brakes before departing from Adelaide."

The flight departed Adelaide at 8.56am and arrived at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 3.15pm on Tuesday.

July has been a tragic month for aviation with three aircraft disasters in the space of a fortnight.

On July 17 Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile over eastern Ukraine. All 15 crew members and 283 passengers lost their lives in the disaster.

On July 23 TransAsia Airways flight GE222 attempted a forced landing at the Magong Airport in Penghu archipelago in Taiwan.

However, the flight crashed in a small patch of empty land a distance away from the landing strip, resulting in the deaths of 48 passengers with 10 others injured.

On July 24, Air Algerie flight 5017 crashed in Mali after departing from Burkina Faso bound for Algeria. All 118 crew and passengers of the flight died in the incident.