Two weeks before families of the ill-fated MH370 could file claims under the Montreal convention, a family of five has filed a RM32 million suit against the national carrier Malaysia Airlines.

The suit was filed by housewife, K Sri Devi, their two children and the parents of S Puspanathan, the passenger.

Puspanathan, an IM governance specialist, was on the flight en route to Beijing. The flight went missing sometime after midnight on March 8.

Puspanathan was married with two sons, P Varmer, three, and P Thashuvarmen, one, while his wife, K Sridevi, 30, is a housewife.

Department of Civil Aviation (DCA), Immigration Department, Malaysia Airport Bhd and Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) and the government were among the defendants in the negligence suit.

Also named are Department of Civil Aviation director-general Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, the then director-general Aloyah Mamat and Air Force chief General Rodzali Daud.

The suit was filed this morning at the Kuala Lumpur High Court through the firm of Brijnandan Singh Bhar & Co.

In their 47-page statement of claim, the plaintiffs claimed that the defendants had acted negligently resulting in the loss of Boeing 777.

Lawyer Shailender Bhar said the immigration department is sued because of the presence of two Iranians with fake passports, while the RMAF and DCA detected the commercial airline had switched direction and headed to Penang but did not do anything.

They are claiming that the defendants jointly caused the death or wrongful death of Pushpanathan.

The five plaintiffs have obtained written consent from Malaysia Airlines on Oct 1, 2015 that that they are the administrators. They further claimed that there were defects to the aircraft, including when they did not replace the battery to the underwater locator beacons which expired on Dec 2012.

They also claimed MAS or Malaysia Airlines System Bhd (under administration) had failed to provide adequate and satisfactory answers which caused them anxiety, stress and mental anguish. They further claimed that the airline failed to execute its duties with regard to the deceased.

DCA don't have enough staff

On DCA, they further claimed that the department failed to take adequate steps to properly transfer MH370 to the Vietnam control centre in Hanoi and do not have enough staff manning the civilian radar on the night of March 8.

DCA further failed to take any adequate steps to track, communicate or contact MH370 from its civilian radar in Kota Bharu and failed to take any adequate steps to ask RMAF if it was tracking MH370 on its military radar, and failed to ask them to take adequate steps to track and search MH370.

Against RMAF, the plaintiffs alleged that it failed to take any adequate steps to defend the national sovereignty, integrity, and interest when it detected MH370 and failed to adequately train the staff or officers to react.

The family is claiming loss of support from Pusphpanathan, who earned RM14,460 monthly, to an amount close to RM2 million. They are also claiming bereavement, loss of husband's services, traumatic psychiatry injury and aggravated damages.

They are further claiming general and special damages pursuant to the Carriage by Air Act 1974, damages pursuant to breach of statutory duty and misfeasance of public office.