SINGAPORE – Passengers flying from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore on Wednesday night were left stranded for hours at the Malaysian airport after the plane experienced technical issues.

Singapore Airlines (SIA) flight SQ125 was scheduled to leave the Malaysian capital at 8.40pm and arrive in Singapore at 9.50pm, with 159 passengers and 13 crew on board.

An SIA spokesman told The Straits Times that Airbus A350 encountered an issue with its aircraft sensor system while it was still on the ground.

He added that the aircraft returned to the bay and all passengers and crew disembarked.

A decision was made for all affected passengers to get on a relief flight as engineers on the ground required more time to fix the technical issue, said the SIA spokesman.

However, the relief flight was subsequently cancelled owing to regulatory reasons, which were not revealed.

The SIA spokesman said: “SIA sincerely apologises for the inconvenience this flight cancellation has caused.”

He added that passengers were provided with meal vouchers, while arrangements were made for them to be put on other flights from KL to Singapore on Thursday. Those put on later flights were provided with hotel accommodation.

In a Facebook post on Friday, a woman said that her tour group was supposed to be on that flight to Singapore, where they would take another flight to London. After the flight was meant to depart, the captain made an announcement that there was a technical error.

She said that at 11pm, the flight was cancelled. The relief flight was scheduled to depart at 2.30am, but it was postponed for two hours before being cancelled.

“From 11.30pm to 4.50am, we were not given water to drink, and we were clueless as to what was happening to our flight,” she said in her post, adding that they were stranded and not offered hotel accommodation.

“We also missed our Singapore to London flight, which was supposed to be at 11.45pm,” she said.

On social media site Reddit, another passenger on the flight said that boarding began at 7.40pm, and he was stuck on the plane till 10.30pm. All passengers were then told to disembark from the plane.

He added that he was told that an alternative flight would arrive at 3.10am, but it was delayed till 4.30am and then later cancelled.

“Everything is chaos, no duty manager in sight,” he said, adding that the passengers were given only Starbucks vouchers.