Report: Malaysia withheld crucial data that could help find MH370

Malaysia has withheld crucial data that could help find the missing MH370 from Australian authorities and independent aviation and data experts involved in the search, alleged a news report today.

Australian news website News.com.au made these shocking claims in an exclusive article.

"If you assumed those tasked with finding this needle in a haystack had been given every piece of information available to solve what is now regarded as the greatest aviation mystery in history, you would be wrong.

"News.com.au can reveal that Malaysia withheld, and continues to withhold, from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) and consulting experts, vital radar data containing possible clues to the location of the Boeing 777 - or what is left of it," said the report.

The search for the Malaysia Airlines jet, which went missing en route to Beijing, China from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014, officially ended on Tuesday after the search party failed to find any sign of the plane in a 12,000 sq km section of the Southern Indian Ocean.

The article also alleged that the Malaysian authorities were negligent and befuddled in the crucial hours after the plane went off radar.

It quoted two independent investigators of MH370's disappearance - American Victor Iannello and British Don Thompson - who concurred they have been denied access to data that could more accurately pinpoint the plane's location.

Thompson told the website that military long-range air defence surveillance data from eight military sites across four nations, was not shared with the ATSB.

"Those satellites, all within range of MH370's flight path - any one of them, or all collectively, could provide vital clues to the plane's whereabouts."

There were also discrepancies and inconsistencies in evidence relating to the flight path, that was shown to victims' families, and was never made available to official investigators, said the report.

One such data was presented by the Royal Malaysian Air Force's Lt-Gen Ackbal Abdul Samad to victims' families in Beijing, China, that placed the flight in the Malacca Straits, it added. This data was also reportedly not shared with ATSB.

"A full copy of the MH370 data communications log has never been made public. The version released has been heavily edited by authorities.

"The existence of telephone records indicating co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid’s mobile phone connected to a tower on Penang Island were initially denied by Malaysia," the report pointed out, adding that authorities, however, later admitted the event had occurred.

"Details of this midair call have never been made public."

The same goes to details of home flight simulator recovered from Captain Zaharie Shah, as well as WeChat activity detected on his mobile phone just a minute before takeoff, claimed the report.

The article then raised questions against the "questionable" way Malaysian authorities have behaved since the tragedy - from the lacklustre response immediately after the disappearance to the way the authorities have dragged their feet over the collection of suspected debris found off Africa.

This includes the Malaysian military's failure to intercept the flight when it was detected on military radar veering off its intended path, in real time, and the four hours of wait before search and rescue efforts were initiated after the disappearance.

Malaysiakini has attempted to contact Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai over the allegations.

Ending of search questioned

Meanwhile, The New York Times also ran a story questioning the rationale behind the ending of the search for the plane.

The paper quoted Grace Nathan, whose mother Anne Daisy was on the flight, saying : "It is incomprehensible that they would give up right now. I can’t imagine living the rest of my life accepting that people just disappeared into thin air.

“It extends beyond me and my family. Of course we would like to know what happened. But millions of people fly every day on Boeing aircraft, and the flying public has the right to know what happened,” said Grace, who is a member of Voice370, a group that represents relatives and friends of those aboard.

Captain John M Cox, a former airline pilot and the chief executive of Safety Operating Systems, an aviation consultancy based in Washington, told NYT while the Boeing 777 "enjoyed a phenomenal safety record", the MH370 tragedy has put the safety record of the plane to question.

Cox also pointed out that investigators did not search an additional 10,000 square-mile area that some experts had identified in December last year as the possible crash zone.

Even if the plane is found anytime soon, the cockpit recorded would be of no use, remarked another aviation expert, Professor R John Hansman Jr of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

This was because the plane had remained aloft for five hours on a consistent trajectory until its fuel was exhausted, and thus, whatever would be in the five-hours worth of tape in the recorder, would be "five hours of silence", he said.- Mkini