KOTA KINABALU: Four Health Ministry personnel were safely rescued after their helicopter made an emergency landing in a remote area near here.
Sabah Air Aviation chairman Datuk Kenny Chua confirmed that the team, aboard a Layang Layang Aerospace helicopter, was part of a flying doctor service mission for rural healthcare outreach.
"Due to a system alert, the helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing in the Buayan area. Thankfully, it was a safe landing, and none of the passengers were injured," he said.
At the time of the incident, another helicopter en route to Tawau for a medical mission received a distress call from the stranded pilot and relayed the message to Sabah Air's headquarters in Tanjung Aru.
In response, a second helicopter, carrying an engineer and two technicians, was dispatched at 12.30pm.
The repair team managed to fix the helicopter on-site, and both helicopters safely returned with the Health Ministry personnel by 2pm.
However, due to limited space, the engineer and technicians had to stay behind in Buayan.
"Given the dense forest and challenging conditions, especially with mist and cloud cover, locating the exact spot is difficult. But we will retrieve them as soon as the situation allows," Chua said.