YOURSAY ‘I’ve never heard that an unauthorised aircraft could be ‘assumed’ to be friendly.’

RMAF 'assumed' control tower ordered turn-back

Ratbatblue: What a load of absolute rubbish from MOD (Ministry of Defence).

I have never heard that an unauthorised aircraft could be "assumed" to be friendly, without challenging it to identify itself.

The most tragic thing here is that had our fighters were sent up to confront MH370, there may have been a chance for the military jets to guide the plane safely down or as another Malaysiakini commenter stated earlier, tail it if it was disabled until it crashed, thereby giving exact location of the crash without having to waste time looking for it.

I wonder what would have happened if there was a ‘9-11' type scenario. The plane would have hit the Twin Towers without any difficulty, and without anyone in hot pursuit. This is sheer incompetence.

Myop101: A simple question: Why didn't RMAF check with DCA (Department of Civil Aviation) if that was the case, to verify and confirm that DCA has given such orders (for MH370 to turn back)?

Is it so hard to pick up the phone and give them a call? You would need at most 10-15 minutes to verify it with all the nearby control towers.

KnockKnock: Deputy Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Bakri said: “We noticed that the plane was heading towards the Straits of Malacca or the Andaman Sea. So we informed the task force responsible the next day,” he said.

Next day? My God! Are you meaning to say no immediate action was taken because it was sleeping time for all and none should be woken up?

Anonymous_3e21: The most stupid answer I’ve ever heard. Because of that the whole world have to waste millions of ringgit, if not billions, to look for the aircraft.

In fact, MH370 could have been safe if the Air Force did the job they were supposed to do in the first place. I think the whole government must resign for causing this catastrophic disaster.

Cynical: If the aircraft cannot be identified because the transponders were turned off, how can the RMAF (Royal Malaysian Air Force) know it is non-hostile or that it was even a civilian aircraft?

This culture of not admitting mistakes, not telling the truth and covering up mistakes or worse, crimes, has to change with the tragedy of MH370.

Our leaders are very fond of denying saying the very things which has become a controversy and blame the press for misreporting, and for quoting them out of context, etc.

The plain truth is they cannot be forthright and truthful when they make statements and for far too long Malaysians have come to accept that as normal when it is not.

Oriole: So does the Air Force operate on assumptions in protection of our nation? This explanation is making the situation worse. There is no possible excuse that is acceptable for the lack of initiative and investigation in the case of what has happened. Heads must roll.

If they are demanding the resignation of the MAS CEO, the ones in charge of this sorry outfit calling itself the Air Force of the country must do the same. Your actions (or the lack of it) have led to serious and dire consequences.

Not Smart: This is an obvious afterthought 'excuse/reason'. This so-called 'assumption' was not what the ministry had said on the first day, worse still, not during the press conferences.

As it is now, Malaysia is not only renowned for being incompetent in managing a crisis and worse still the nation, but it will also be renowned for cover-ups, lies, arrogance and stupidity.

We are on the internationally stage and we cannot fool the audiences like how we do back home.

With this crisis, Malaysians and the whole world can see how useless our Defence Ministry is. All this while, there was never a 'national security' in place. So what is this deputy minister talking about?

Just_A_Rakyat: If you must lie, come up with something credible. It's so glaring that MH370 was never detected making a turn back, otherwise on the morning MH370 was declared lost, RMAF will be ready with a statement.

But no, we have to wait several days before a turn back is announced. So minister, if you can't even lie properly, please hand in your resignation.

FairMind: I remembered in an earlier military reply made in the earlier stages, the Air Force chief said that it was only a blip on his radar and doesn't know whether it was a Boeing 777 or for that matter MH370.

He had to ask the foreign aviation experts to determine it was actually MH370 and that took them several days wasting valuable time. Now he said he assumed that the control tower ordered the turn back.

Obviously, he is lying through his teeth. The real frightening truth is that mediocrity had permeated the whole military and that its time were spend in surveillance for BN rather than the country.

SteveOh: Tragic. This is the sort of shonky 'tidak apa' attitude that has become part and parcel of public institutions.

More lives will be lost unless meritocracy replaces the racist ‘ketuanan Melayu’ ideology that has resulted in not the best people being given the most responsible jobs.

Some day another fool is going to get more people killed. Wake up Malaysia.

Anonymous #44199885: The military should not make any assumptions, and if it indeed needs to make one then it must make the "worst case scenario" assumption considering the 9/11 attacks.

I hope the MH370 incident is an eye-opener to our government to make needed changes to the military and DCA SOPs (standard operating procedures) and upgrade our air and sea surveillance systems.

In light of the two other latest incidents involving MAS flights, an immediate comprehensive investigation of the maintenance and operation SOPs of MAS must be undertaken and shortcomings corrected to avert any further incidents.

Het: To me, "assumption" here should read "negligence". Can we depend on our air defence system to keep us safe?

A lie to cover-up another lie from RMAF

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