Expert panel to decide if 4-hour delay acceptable

Malaysian authorities are leaving it to the international panel of experts that it had set up to determine whether Malaysia had been slow to realise that Flight MH370 had gone missing in the early hours of March 8, and even slower to act on it.

Timeline made public yesterday indicated a 17-minute delay before the disappearance of the plane was first noticed by air traffic controllers in Vietnam and Malaysia, and a four-hour gap from that time before search and rescue operation was launched.

Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, in a press conference today, refused to comment when asked on the delay in the activation of the Air Rescue Coordination Centre.

Instead, he pointed out that France took much longer to initiate rescue procedures when Air France Flight 447 disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean back in 2009.

“It is not for us to discuss and decide here because I had informed that in the case of Air France Flight 447, it took them six to seven hours to respond.

“Therefore the benchmark for response time is different based on prevailing conditions. If we want to discuss this via the media, everyone have their opinion,” he said.

[More to follow]