‘Air traffic controllers didn’t follow procedure’

PUTRAJAYA: The failure to initiate emergency procedures by air traffic controllers delayed the activation of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 search- andrescue operations.

The 12-minute delay by the Ho Chi Minh Air Control Centre in contacting the Kuala Lumpur Radar Controller allowed the plane to veer off as far as 128 nautical miles from its last known position, which was in the Straits of Malacca.

The Kuala Lumpur Air Traffic Control also failed to comply with the established procedure, as it did not inform of the “hand over” of Flight MH370 to Ho Chi Minh Air Control Centre. It had also given instructions to the pilot to contact Ho Chi Minh Air Control Centre three minutes earlier.

It is learnt that a Boeing 777 could fly 8.5 nautical miles per minute, and the time it took for these delays would have allowed such an aircraft to fly from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to Penang.

Malaysian International Civil Aviation Organisation Annex 13 Safety Investigation team head Datuk Kok Soo Chon said the airplane could have gone anywhere in that 17 minutes.

“The correct procedure is that the Kuala Lumpur Air Traffic Control should have informed the hand-over of Flight MH370 to Ho Chi Minh Air Control Centre at 0122 MYT, or when MH370 was over Igari waypoint.

“It is okay to provide the information earlier, provided that it informs the Ho Chin Minh Air Control Centre.

“What happened was it instructed the pilot to contact Ho Chi Minh Air Control Centre at 0119 MYT, but the pilot never did. Kuala Lumpur Air Traffic Control also did not inform Ho Chi Minh Air Control Centre about the transfer. So, there was gap of three minutes.

“The Ho Chi Minh Air Control Centre was supposed to call the Kuala Lumpur Air Traffic Control by 0127 MYT (within the fiveminute emergency phase). However, it only called at 0139 MYT, or 12 minutes later,” he said, adding that by 0152 MYT, the plane was already at south of Penang.