KUALA LUMPUR, May 20 — Malaysia Airlines (MAS) has denied claims on social media that flight MH1348 bound for Langkawi had suffered a minor mid-air explosion earlier today, which forced it to land.

Instead, the flag carrier confirmed that MH1348 was struck by lightning, but said its planes are designed to withstand such occurrences.

MH1348 subsequently landed normally at the Langkawi International Airport, was placed under immediate inspection and was later released for service, MAS said in a press statement carried by the New Straits Times.

“The aircraft has arrived in Kuala Lumpur and continued its series of scheduled services without any problems.

“Malaysia Airlines’ aircrafts are designed to withstand lightning strikes and dissipate the electrical charges through the aircraft bonding system safety,” the daily quoted MAS as saying in its report online.

According to a report by The Malaysian Insider, Instagram user Haswendy reported the incident as an explosion on the left engine of MH1438 while it was some distance off the ground, just before it touched down at the Langkawi airport.

Haswendy, a passenger, reportedly posted pictures of the plane engine on his Instagram page.

“I had a traumatic experience during our flight from KLIA to Langkawi just now. One of our flight MH1438 left engine had a light explosion that caused small sparks.  Few of the passengers were startled and few were crying.

“Alhamdulillah we landed safely,” Haswendy was quoted as saying by the news portal.

The incident is the latest in a series of misfortunes to hit the loss-making airline since the still-unsolved mystery of missing flight MH370.

On March 24, it was reported that MAS was forced to ground a plane to refill life jackets inflated by panicked passengers on a flight bound for Incheon, South Korea.

Flight MH066, an Airbus A330-300 aircraft, had been diverted to Hong Kong after a power generator failed and an auxiliary unit had kicked in. The plane landed safely and all 271 passengers were unharmed.

But one panicked passenger inflated a life jacket before the plane landed, prompting others to do the same, according to local daily The Star.

Shortly before that, birds flew into a Malaysia Airlines aircraft while it was landing in Nepal, but all 180 passengers and crew on board the flight were reported to be unharmed, according to a Reuters report.

The report said the location of the Kathmandu airport, surrounded by hills and forests, made it common for birds to fly into planes.

On March 8, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared less than an hour after leaving Kuala Lumpur International Airport for Beijing.

A multinational search for the plane and 239 people on board is continuing.