The first batch of Malaysians evacuated from Libya, who were supposed to arrive home today, will have to wait at least another 24 hours.
This is because a Royal Malaysian Air Force C-130 Hercules transport aircraft, which was supposed to fly them from Tunisia to Rome, had failed to get landing approval on time from the Italian authorities for the evacuees to catch a connecting flight here.
They only received the clearance to land in Rome at 9.15pm yesterday.
The government had chartered a commercial aircraft to evacuate 131 Malaysians from Tripoli, and ended up picking 55 citizens of other countries.
In Rome, 90 of the Malaysians were supposed to board a Malaysia Airlines flight at 12.20am today, which landed at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 6.50am.
The rest were to catch another MAS flight tomorrow. However, as the first MAS flight took off, the RMAF C-130 was still in Tunisia.
National Security Council (NSC) secretary Datuk Mohamed Thajudeen Abdul Wahab said the government had blocked 177 seats on the MAS flights from Rome to Kuala Lumpur.
"But, it looks like they have missed their flight home from Rome as there was a delay to get clearance to land our aircraft from Tunisia."
Recalling the evacuation from Tripoli, Thajudeen said the authorities there had on Thursday given clearance for the RMAF aircraft to land and evacuate Malaysians there.
"But then, we were denied clearance to touch down when it neared Tripoli. We were not given a reason why we were denied and so, we started looking at other resources. Luckily, we managed to get a chartered flight from Tunisia to go to Tripoli.
"The flight left for Tripoli early yesterday morning and again, it was asked to turn back because of air traffic congestion. We can understand that as everybody wanted to leave."
Thajudeen said the flight was finally given clearance to land at 5.30am Malaysian time and the 186 waiting passengers were allowed to board at 7am.
He said he was informed that the flight only took off at 10.30am with Malaysian, British, Filipino, Indonesian, Thai and Tunisian passengers.
Unlike the students who were evacuated from Egypt earlier this month, Thajudeen said Malaysians who were evacuated from Libya will fly home with their own money.
"At that time, they needed our assistance to take them out from Tripoli. Most of the people are employed by major companies and some are paying for their own fare while others are paid by their companies."
Thajudeen said among those brought out were Malaysian ambassador to Libya Mohd Zulkephli Mohd Noor, his family and four embassy staff as the Foreign Affairs Ministry had decided to shut down the mission temporarily.
"In fact, the ambassador was the one conducting the whole evacuation process there."
Thajudeen said five Malaysian students, including a woman, had opted to stay behind, adding that they were given a Wisma Putra number to contact in case of emergency.
Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman said in a statement yesterday that the evacuation was carried out successfully because of good cooperation between the NSC, his ministry and Ranhill Bhd, which had a substantial presence in Libya.
