‘Breakdown due to ageing trains’
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) is blaming its “ageing” trains for the breakdown at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) yesterday.
Twenty passengers were forced to walk along the tracks back to the terminal building.
The breakdown happened at 5.30pm and a video of the incident has gone viral.
The 30-second clip that was made available to the New Straits Times showed the passengers walking along the tracks.
MAHB managing director Datuk Badlisham Ghazali said their two trains, which had been operating for nearly 20 years, were due for an overhaul. He said a major overhaul would be carried out on the trains by the end of the year.
“We are also halfway through heavy maintenance work on the two trains,” he said.
On the breakdown, he said an engineer had arrived at the site one minute after they received the alert.
“However, passengers had already prised open the aerotrain doors and started walking along the tracks before the engineer arrived.
“Five passengers, however, remained on the train, as seen in the video.
“As per standard operating procedures, there should have been an announcement, but the passengers were too impatient, so they started to walk,” he said, adding that the engineer drove the train back to the building.
The breakdown is the second one in three months.
In the previous incident, Badlisham said, passengers had also started to walk along the tracks before engineers could rectify the problem.
As an immediate solution, he said, engineers would be stationed in the trains to ensure that there were no more such incidents. Deputy Transport Minister Datuk Abdul Aziz Kaprawi urged MAHB to resolve the issue as soon as possible.
He said the trains could be used for another five years as maintenance had been carried out as per schedule.
“Sometimes, mechanical issues occur that have nothing to do with wear and tear,” he said.