DAY 74
Latest developments:
- Audio recording of pings not to be released yet
One more MH370 crew family speaks up
6pm: In a similar vein as complaints made on Sunday, Nur Syafinaz Asnan, whose brother was a crew member on MH370, says that her family has been ignored and not been compensated by MAS.
Other kin of MH370 crew members said that they were cut off after seeking foreign legal aid but unlike them, Nur said that she would not pursue the matter further.
“Even though all kinds of story from various sides have emerged about the loss of MH370, I will continue to pray for a good conclusion. I don’t know what else to say,” Nur Syafinaz is quoted telling freemalaysiatoday.com .
Previously, it was reported that MAS has already paid out compensation to some MH370 passengers’ families but kin of crew members would receive less money, based on their employment contracts.
JACC declines sharing Australia's ping recordings
5pm: Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) tells News Corp Australia that it has no plans to release the four audio recordings of ping transmission searchers picked up from the bottom of the ocean, initially thought to be from MH370's black box.
Retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston had last earlier last month said he could see no issue with releasing the audio, but that position has changed after six weeks of intense examination of the signals, reports the Herald Sun .
"The recordings of the detections will not be released at this point in time," the JACC reportedly says in a statement to News Corp Australia.
But the JACC is also quoted saying that the lead was still being pursued and none of the acoustic detections taken on April 5 and 8 has been ruled out. The ‘pings’ are being analysed at the Australian Joint Acoustic Analysis Centre.
Doubts were raised over a week ago, when the Wall Street Journal quoted Australian naval officer Commander James Lybrand saying that the second set of pings was from the plane’s cockpit voice recorder or flight data beacons were too far off standard black box device frequency.
This comes following demands from next-of-kin of those onboard the missing jetliner that the data be released so that they may commission an independent analysis.
"In moving forward, it is imperative for us to provide helpful information to the next of kin and general public - which will include the data communication logs as well as relevant explanation to enable the reader to understand the data provided.
"It must also be noted that the data communication logs is just one of the many elements of the investigation information," the DCA and Inmarsat say in a joint statement today.
It was Inmarsat's analysis that prompted authorities to fish for MH370 remains off Western Australia, however, search of the seabed has yet to uncover any sign of wreckage.
This led to dissenting views from some experts, including mathematicians from The Atlantic magazine, that the calculations may have been wrong and the plane may not be in the south Indian Ocean.
Najib clarifies on MAS bankruptcy
2.42pm: A spokesperson for Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak clarifies that the premier did not specifically mention bankruptcy when discussing the fate of ailing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) after the lost of MH370.
The spokesperson reproduces Najib's response to a question by Wall Street Journal which asked for his view on some quarters suggesting bankruptcy as a way forward for MAS.
"The Prime Minister responded: 'Well different modalities have been suggested. But we have to look at it from all angles, bearing in mind that MAS is a government-linked company. It’s not a private company so there are certain repercussions in what you want to do in terms of how it is being received by the employees and the general public'," the statement reads.
Minister: Are we to shoot MH370 down?
12.19pm: Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein deflects criticism against the Royal Malaysian Air Force for not scrambling jets to intercept Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, asking that if it were done, would it be to shoot down the aircraft.
“If we are going to send it (jets) up, are you going to say we were going to shoot it down?” he is quoted as saying in an interview on Australia’s ABC1's Four Corners programme.
Hishammuddin, who is also Defence Minister, concedes that Flight MH370 was simply allowed to vanish even though the military were informed of the aircraft going rogue, according to the report.
“It was commercial, it was in our air space, we were not at war with anybody,” he says.
Baby boy for missing MAS steward
10.27am: Intan Maizura Othman, 34, whose husband Mohd Hazrin Hasnan was lost in the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 tragedy, gives birth to a baby boy.
Bernama reports that the boy, named Muhammad, is the family's second child and was born at 4pm at Putrajaya Hospital yesterday.
A photograph of the baby posted on Facebook received some 63,000 likes within three hours.
Background:
- The Beijing-bound Boeing 777-200ER aircraft went missing not long after taking off from KL International Airport in the early hours of March 8, with 12 crew members and 227 passengers.
