Relatives of MH370 passengers storm out of glitch-ridden MAS briefing, says report

A Chinese representative told The South China Morning Post that 'the Malaysian has repeatedly failed to deliver what they promised'. – Reuters pic, April 17, 2014.Some 200 relatives of Chinese passengers aboard missing flight MH370 stormed out of a meeting room in Beijing after technical glitches disrupted a video conference with Malaysia Airlines staff in Kuala Lumpur yesterday morning, The South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports.

SCMP said that the morning meeting, which was delayed by 20 minutes, ended abruptly when the relatives received only visuals but no audio from the Malaysian side.
The relatives then refused to continue the meeting and left the conference hall at the Metropark Lido Hotel in protest.

SCMP also quoted the relatives as saying that the airline had promised to hold face-to-face meetings in Beijing and give updates every five days after the Malaysian government last month announced the flight had "ended" in the Indian Ocean. But the meetings had been suspended since April 3.

Jiang Hui, the relatives' representative, told SCMP: "The Malaysian side has repeatedly failed to deliver what they promised. I don't think we can communicate via such video meetings. They have not sent anyone over for the past 13 days.

"We have many technical questions and other questions that we wish to talk to them about face to face. It's difficult to understand each other correctly through video conferencing, which, to make things worse, has to rely on translators."

Staff from the Malaysian embassy, who coordinated the meeting, did not offer any explanation for the incident, said SCMP.

The search already into day 41 has proved to be difficult for the multinational search team scouring the Indian Ocean for wreckage from flight MH370.

A total of 154 of the passengers were Chinese nationals and 50 including the crew were Malaysians while the rest were from 13 other countries.

But the duration of the rescue operation has also unleashed a wave of criticism from China on the way Malaysia is coordinating the effort.