A flynas flight bound for Jeddah has turned back to Riyadh. The flight was operated by a Lion Air Indonesia Boeing 737-900.
PK-LKM was the aircraft operating the flight, known as KNE033. The aircraft departed Riyadh at 1640 local time and around 20 minutes into the flight, it turned back.
At this time, it is unclear what the reasoning is behind the flight turning back and not continuing on to Jeddah.
flynas Flight KNE033 – Riyadh to Jeddah: Operated by a Lion Air Boeing 737-900…
What we do know so far is that the aircraft is not squawking an emergency code, known as 7700, at this time.
This means that whatever the problem is onboard the aircraft, it is being controlled and managed sufficiently by the crew onboard.
Lion Air Indonesia has a couple of Boeing 737 aircraft operating in Saudi Arabia, including the Riyadh-Jeddah route.
The extra demand being faced by flynas means that the airline needs to lease additional aircraft to cope with this.
It could also be down to a shortage of aircraft within their own fleet, depending on maintenance, etc.
As for PK-LKM specifically, the aircraft was delivered to Lion Air back in December 2012, giving the aircraft an age of 10.7 years, as per data from Planespotters.net.
AviationSource will approach flynas for a comment on the decision to return back to Riyadh and not continue onwards to Jeddah. It is unclear when the flight will continue on to Jeddah.
This is a developing story. More to follow in due course.
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