MH370 Despite criticism, Malaysia Airlines chief executive officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said that the airlines has gone “beyond normal procedure” in providing care and information to families of passengers on MH370.

“We have given (service) beyond what we normally (do) in a standard scenario. I don’t want scenarios like this to happen every time, but we are kind of prepared.

“Essentially, this is part of our procedure if something tragic happens this is our response and we have gone beyond our normal response,” he said in an exclusive interview with BBC published yesterday.

When it was pointed out that families still feel it is not enough, Ahmad Jauhari ( right ) said it is “unfair” to say so as MAS is not withholding information and is doing all it can.

He said that MAS was given 30 minutes to inform families that MH370 had gone down in the Indian Ocean before Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s announcement.

“Within 30 minutes, we had to be in touch with 1,000 family members, and we are talking about (different) timezones, languages, many, many things.

“The first priority was to inform them personally through our caregivers, to gather them in a location where we can inform them...

“Our phone centres were active in trying to contact the family members through phone,” he said, reiterating the need to inform families before media reported it.

He also said he does not know if pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah had flown the plane into the ocean, but  is hopeful the wreckage can be found so questions can be answered.

Gov’t told to apologise to families from China

Despite his explanation,

PAS' Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad this morning has urged the government to apologise to angry families of Chinese passengers who were on the ill-fated Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH370.

He said acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein should do the same.

 

Passengers from China made up two-thirds of the 239 people on board the Beijing-bound flight, which went missing on March 8 and is now presumed to have “gone down” in the southern Indian Ocean.

 

"When China gave us wrong satellite images about the plane debris, they said ‘sorry’. We should also apologise," he told a press conference at the Parliament lobby today.

 

Khalid also urged the government not to use the incident as an excuse to upgrade the government's military radar capability.

"This is not a problem with the radar. The radar was working. People who should have acted on it did not do so. Don't use this as an excuse to spend more," he added.