MH370 REPORT FAILS TO UNCOVER CAUSE OF FLIGHT DISAPPEARANCE
▶ Relatives of lost passengers and crew angered that mystery is unanswered after four years
Investigators said yesterday that they did not know why Malaysia’s Flight MH370 vanished four years ago, sparking anger and disappointment among victims’ relatives.
A long-awaited report by the official investigation team pointed to failings by air traffic controllers, said the course of the Malaysia Airlines plane was changed manually, and refused to rule out that someone other than the pilots diverted the jet.
But after years of fruitless searching for the Boeing 777 that disappeared on March 8, 2014 with 239 people onboard, the report offered nothing for relatives seeking closure.
“The team is unable to determine the real cause for the disappearance of MH370,” the 400-page report concluded. It said that investigators were hampered by the absence of the plane’s wreckage and its black-box recorders.
They said the plane was airworthy and its pilots fit to fly it, and dismissed the theory that the plane had been taken over remotely to foil a hijacking.
Relatives of those on board, who were briefed at the transport ministry in the administrative capital of Putrajaya before the report’s public release, were angry that there was nothing new in the document. Some stormed out of the briefing.
“It is so disappointing,” said Intan Maizura Othman, whose husband was a steward on MH370, which was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with mostly mainland Chinese passengers when it vanished. “I am frustrated. There is nothing new in the report.” Ms Othman said the meeting between relatives and officials descended into shouting. G Subramaniam, whose son was on the flight, said “unsatisfactory responses left many angry”.
The 19-member team, which included foreign investigators, said Malaysian and Vietnamese air traffic controllers failed to act properly when the Boeing passed between their airspaces and disappeared from radar.
Controllers did not initiate emergency procedures early enough, delaying the start of the search and rescue operation, the team said.
But it played down concerns about the pilot and first officer, saying neither appeared to have suffered difficulties that could have affected their ability to fly.
“We did not find any change to their behaviour, everything was normal,” said Kok Soo Chon, head of the investigation team.
The report said the plane was airworthy and did not have major technical issues. Mr Kok said it had been diverted from its flight path manually.
Intervention by a third party could not be ruled out, the report said, but it added there was no evidence to suggest the plane was flown by anyone other than the pilots.
The disappearance of MH370 triggered the largest hunt in aviation history. But no sign of it was found in a 120,000-square-kilometre search zone in the Indian Ocean and the Australian-led hunt was suspended in January last year.
US exploration firm Ocean Infinity resumed the search in a different location at the start of this year on a “no find, no fee” basis, using drones to scour the seabed. That search was called off after failing to find anything.
Only three confirmed fragments of MH370 have been found, all of them on western Indian Ocean shores, including a two-metre wing part known as a flaperon.
Malaysia’s new government, which took power in May, said the hunt could only be resumed if new evidence came to light.
Transport Minister Anthony Loke yesterday said that “the aspiration to locate MH370 has not been abandoned and we remain ever-hopeful that we will be able to find the answers we seek when the credible evidence becomes available”.