More on the alleged delay in police response and deplaning of pax:
Terrified passengers were forced to sit with a device suspected of being a bomb for more than an hour as they waited for security to board the plane and investigate.
Malaysian Airlines flight MH128, which had departed Melbourne Airport at 11.11pm for Kuala Lumpur, looped back to Melbourne after the captain was alerted by a cabin crew of a passenger attempting to enter the cockpit.
The passenger was overpowered by passengers and the plane's crew and later arrested by heavily armed security officers.
A passenger named Andy told 3AW the people on board were scared for their lives.
"We sat for an hour and 20 mins waiting for the police to come," he said.
"Everyone was sh--ing themselves."
Donna, the girlfriend of one of the passengers on board flight MH128, alerted 3AW to the incident on board the plane shortly after 11pm last night over concerns police didn't act swiftly enough.
"They've got this suspicious object from this guy which is now sitting at the front of the plane," she said.
"They've been sitting on the tarmac there for 40 minutes - everyone just wants to get off the plane."
She said her boyfriend, who is yet to be identified, had asked her "call everyone" because passengers could see police on the tarmac but that there was "no people coming in to get them".
"They are all freaking out on this plane. They're waiting for the stairs to come but it's been 40 minutes," she said.
"He's telling me to call everyone to put pressure on the police to get these guys off the plane. These guys just want to get off this plane, because they're scared that this guy could blow up this plane."
MH128: Passengers forced to wait at Melbourne Airport with 'bomb' on board - 9news.com.au