A commercial airplane heading to the island of Bali in Indonesia from China's Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport turned back midflight on Wednesday after air crew learned that its cabin door was not completely closed, South China Morning Post reported citing the Southern Metropolis Daily.

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The Sriwijaya Air flight 1159, which took off at around 3 a.m., was forced to turn around after 90 minutes through the flight when the captain noticed a problem with the cabin doors. An airline official said that the front cabin door was incompletely closed although the cockpit's monitoring panel showed otherwise.

Some passengers were outraged for having to return to Guangzhou and demanded an explanation. Others also raised suspicions that "holes" were allegedly found on the aircraft, although these rumors were immediately brushed off by airline representatives.

"When the captain found the problem, he decided to return immediately," an airline spokesperson in Guangzhou said. The airline spent around 30 minutes conducting some tests and repairs in Guangzhou's airport before finally taking off again at 10:30 a.m. It landed safely in Bali at 2:30 p.m.

The Jakarta-based plane initially carried more than 180 passengers, but at least 20 decided not to re-board again. Airline representatives are reportedly planning to compensate the affected passengers.

According to SCMP, Sriwijaya Air has not responded to any request for comment on the incident.

Shanghaiist noted that Sriwijaya Air is listed as a Category 1 airline (the highest operational safety status) by Indonesia's Civil Aviation Authority. However, Airline Ratings only gave one out of the seven stars to rate the company's safety features in 2015, and only two stars in 2016.  

TagsSriwijaya Air, Indonesia, Guangzhou, flight, plane safety