UPDATED: Adds airline, ATSB comment confirming no external fire

SYDNEY/KUALA LUMPUR: A Malaysia Airlines flight returned safely to Melbourne airport on Friday, having turned back within minutes of take-off after an engine fire alert went off, airport and airline officials said.

The Airbus A330 aircraft MH148 was carrying 300 passengers and heading from Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur.

"There was an emergency declared, there was an 'engine fire' alert in the cabin. The plane proceeded to dump the fuel and returned to land and it landed safely at the aviation rescue sites," a spokeswoman at Airservices Australia told Reuters by phone.

However, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said there was no indication of fire after landing.

Malaysia Airlines also said in a statement that a preliminary inspection revealed no evidence of fire externally, and further assessments were underway.

"The Airbus 330 is being inspected by Malaysia Airlines’ engineers and ground personnel," the statement added.

All of the passengers on board the flight were disembarked.

Malaysia Airlines was involved in two air disasters in 2014 with MH370 disappearing over the southern Indian Ocean last March and MH17 being shot down over Ukraine a few months later.

The incident could further dent confidence in the "technically bankrupt" Malaysian carrier, whose decline began long before the tragic events of last year.

We can confirm that the MH148 aircraft has landed safely @melair. All operations at Melbourne Airport continue as normal.

— Melbourne Airport (@Melair) June 12, 2015

[MH148] Preliminary inspection on the aircraft reveals no physical evidence of fire externally. Safety is our utmost priority. — Malaysia Airlines (@MAS) June 12, 2015

MH148 MEL-KUL made an air-turn back and landed uneventfully. The aircraft is being grounded for investigation. More details to follow.

— Malaysia Airlines (@MAS) June 12, 2015

#MH148 landed safely after fire in starboard engine, per Melbourne FD. Fire out, all safe. http://t.co/feQR7elKQp pic.twitter.com/kn0UUOxXPM — Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) June 12, 2015

I understand around 300 people were on board #MH148 when it made emergency landing @Melair @SkyNewsAust pic.twitter.com/o3mDs93YN9

— Simon Love (@SimoLove) June 12, 2015

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• Fifteen months ago, Malaysia Airlines' Flight MH370 had gone missing while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board.

  The Boeing 777 is yet to be tracked down.

• Highlights - Report on missing Malaysian airliner one year on

  Published on March 9, 2015

  REUTERS

The Boeing 777-200ER disappeared on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board.

Following are some main points from the team, which included investigators from the United States, Britain, China, France and Australia.

- MH370 was spotted making a turn-back by Malaysian primary radars operated by both the military and civil aviation authorities. Thai radars also spotted MH370, but Bangkok's air traffic controllers "did not pay much attention" as the flight did not fall under Thailand's flight information region.

- Indonesian air traffic control radar in Medan, in the north of Sumatra island, did not pick up MH370 "for unknown reasons" despite having a range of 240 nautical miles. The Indonesian military picked up MH370's radar plot as it was heading towards its last confirmed position, at 35,000 feet about 90 miles off the east coast of Malaysia, heading towards Vietnam, but "no other information was made available".

- Investigations revealed nothing suspicious in the financial, medical or personal histories of pilots or crew, or in behaviour before the flight.

- The aircraft's transponder, which was switched off just before the aircraft made the turn-back, was "operating satisfactorily" until it was lost on the air-traffic control screen.

- There was no message from the aircraft reporting a system failure.

- The investigation team found that a battery powering MH370's flight data recorder's underwater locator beacon, which will send a signal if a crash occurs in the water, had expired in December 2012 and had not been replaced. This was because the engineering department's computer system was not properly updated.

- This was not noted until after MH370 disappeared, and Malaysia Airlines (MAS) engineers carried out a fleet-wide inspection of underwater locator beacons to ensure that the records for all of its aircraft were updated.

- The failure of the beacon, however, does not affect the recorder itself, and the investigation team did not point out any problems with the black boxes.

- The investigators confirmed the aircraft's right wing-tip was damaged during an accident while taxiing in Shanghai in 2012. It was repaired by a Boeing team there.

- Data from the aircraft's communications addressing and reporting system (ACARS) revealed no unusual engine behaviour on take-off.

- Weather reports showed no adverse weather at last point of contact.

- The report included transcripts of increasingly worried exchanges between air-traffic control centres and the MAS ground operations centre about the missing plane.

- A final report will not be issued until the investigation has been completed. Until then, the investigation team has to release an interim statement on each anniversary of the disappearance, detailing progress and any safety issues.

•  On July 17 last year, Malaysia Airlines MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing 298 passengers and crew on board.

  It is believed that a missile had hit the Boeing 777 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur in the skies of war zone in Ukraine.

• Missile maker says Russia did not shoot down Malaysian plane over Ukraine

  (Published on June 2, 2015)

REUTERS

MOSCOW: The Russian company that makes the BUK air defense system that was used to shoot down a Malaysian airliner in east Ukraine said the plane was hit by a missile deployed by Ukraine and not widely used by Russia's military.

State-run Almaz-Antey said its own analysis of the wreckage of the Malaysia Airlines plane brought down on July 17 last year, killing 298 people, indicated it was hit by a BUK 9M38M1 surface-to-air missile armed with a 9H314M warhead.

Shrapnel holes in the plane were consistent with that kind of missile and warhead, it said.

Such missiles have not been produced in Russia since 1999 and the last ones were delivered to foreign customers, it said, adding that the Russian armed forces now mainly use a 9M317M warhead with the BUK system.

"Neither the company nor its enterprises could have supplied these rockets in the 21st century," Almaz-Antey's chief executive, Yan Novikov, told a news conference run by the Kremlin press service at which the company used 3D visuals and computer animation.

After a company presentation translated simultaneously into three languages, he said Ukraine's armed forces had still had nearly 1,000 such missiles in its arsenal in 2005, when it held talks with Almaz-Antey on prolonging their lifespan.

Criticizing sanctions imposed on Almaz-Antey by the European Union, he said: "The corporation was not involved in the Malaysian Boeing catastrophe. Correspondingly, the economic sanctions applied to the corporation for that are ... unjust."

When it imposed the sanctions on Almaz-Antey, the EU said the firm produced anti-aircraft weaponry which the Russian authorities have supplied to pro-Russian separatists fighting Kiev's forces in east Ukraine.

Moscow is trying to deflect blame for the shooting down of the airliner and denies sending arms and soldiers to support the rebels, though the West and Kiev say they have overwhelming proof of the latter.

Russian officials initially said flight MH17 was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter jet but that version was widely ridiculed abroad. They now say it was probably hit by a missile fired from the ground by Ukrainian forces.

Ukraine has denied its forces shot the plane down.

Dutch investigators who are leading an international investigation say their "leading scenario" is that it was hit by a Russian-made BUK.