Deputy minister did not mislead House on MH370, says speaker

Parliament today ruled that the deputy defence minister did not mislead the House over his assumption that the Subang air traffic control had asked Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 to turn back.

After taking into account Datuk Abdul Rahim Bakri's explanation, Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia said: "Based on all the facts in front of me, I have decided that he has no intention to mislead the House."

Late last month, Rahim admitted he assumed that the air traffic control had asked the ill-fated aircraft to turn back, adding that his assumption was not accurate.

The deputy minister's reply in Parliament added another element to the often confusing and contradictory statements made by Malaysian authorities over the Boeing 777 passenger jet that went missing with 239 people on board on March 8.

"In relation to my statement on the debate for the Royal Address yesterday, in which I said MH370 did a turn back probably because it received instructions from air traffic control, I want to clarify that it was just my assumption and one of the possibilities that could have happened.

"After making checks, I would like to stress that my assumption is not accurate," Rahim said in a terse two-paragraph statement in Kuala Lumpur on March 28.

It was reported earlier that military radars had spotted a non-hostile aircraft flying right across the country's air space in the early hours of March 8.

Malaysia has come under severe criticism after it was revealed that the military radar tracked an unidentified craft – now confirmed to be MAS flight MH370 – but did not take any action.

Contact with the Beijing-bound flight, which took off from Kuala Lumpur at 12.40am on March 8, was lost at 1.40am, shortly after it left Malaysian air space over the South China Sea.

After more than two weeks of searching for the aircraft, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced on Monday that the flight had ended in the southern Indian Ocean, with MAS saying there could be no survivors.

A multination search and rescue operation is underway to search for the wreckage and the plane's black box recorders before the batteries run out.