Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein says it is important to discuss the issue of cost as the next phase will involve a deep-sea search. – The Malaysian Insider pic, April 30, 2014.Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein will fly to Australia next week to discuss the next phase in the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 and the costs involved.
The acting Transport Minister said thus far, Australian authorities have not spoken about the economic cost of the search.
"As it will involve deep-sea searching, it is important to discuss the issue of cost," Hishammuddin told reporters at KLIA2 today.
"The discussions will involve all the relevant stakeholders and revolve around issues such as where the search will be conducted and what assets will be deployed.
"Another important issue is who is going to supply the assets which will be necessary to carry out the search," Hishammuddin said.
On Monday, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott had said that the next phase in the search for MH370 would be a more intense underwater search.
The underwater operation will involve the use of private contractors and could take months, costing an estimated US$56 million (RM184 million).
Thus far, Bluefin-21, a submersible on contract to the United States Navy, has not been able to locate any sign of the aircraft on the ocean floor.
Further technology, including a number of underwater vehicles, both private and public, could be pressed into service to join the search.
Hishammuddin said the three ministerial committees which had been formed two weeks ago would seek answers to the issues which he had raised above.
The next-of-kin, technical and deployment of assets committees were set up to streamline ongoing efforts to locate flight MH370.
Meanwhile, Hishammuddin revealed that the preliminary report on the disappearance of flight MH370 will be made public tomorrow.
"I will be having a press conference tomorrow, and I will answer questions relating to the preliminary report then," he told reporters.
Last week, Hishammuddin had announced that a preliminary report on MH370's disappearance had been handed to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
However, he declined to answer whether the report would be made public for media consumption. This was heavily criticised by the international media.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak later told CNN in an exclusive interview last week that the report would be made public this week.
Meanwhile, AFP reported that the intensive air search for wreckage from flight MH370 officially ended today as the hunt was drastically scaled back.
Ships involved in the search were leaving the Indian Ocean area where the plane is believed to have crashed.
Abbott had said that it was unlikely to find debris on the surface anymore.
Eight nations have been involved in the unprecedented Indian Ocean hunt – Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, the United States, Britain and China – with more than 300 sorties flown across a vast expanse of water.
But with nothing to show for their efforts to scan more than 4.5 million square kilometres from the air since March 18, the planes have been stood down.
"Most of the aircraft will have left by the end of today," a spokesman for the Australian-led Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) told AFP, although an Australian P-3 Orion would remain on standby in Perth.
The United States, Japan, New Zealand and Malaysia all confirmed that their aircraft were returning to base.
Beijing's foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang declined to specify whether China's aircraft were being withdrawn. The majority of the passengers on board the missing jet were Chinese.
"I repeatedly said that, in the next phase, the Chinese side will continue to actively support and take an active part in the search operations," he told reporters at a regular briefing.
"We will stay in close communication and coordination with all relevant parties."
As many as 14 ships from Australia, China and Britain were involved in scanning the ocean surface for debris or black box signals but many of these are also pulling out.
"Some need to head back to port and refuel and give the crew a rest, others will go back to doing what they were doing for their respective nations before they joined the search," AFP quoted the JACC spokesman as saying.
"In essence, the surface search has been scaled back. We will keep a few vessels out there and others on standby, but the large-scale air and sea search has ended."
Despite the failure to find wreckage, authorities insist they are looking in the right area and had today dismissed claims by a marine exploration company that material found in the Bay of Bengal could be from the missing flight.
Adelaide-based GeoResonance was quoted in Malaysian and Australian media as saying it had detected possible debris from a plane 5,000 kilometres from the current search zone.
But the JACC played down any link.
"The Australian-led search is relying on information from satellite and other data to determine the missing aircraft's location. The location specified by the GeoResonance report is not within the search arc derived from this data," a spokesman said.
"The joint international team is satisfied that the final resting place of the missing aircraft is in the southerly portion of the search arc."
GeoResonance, which specialises in geophysical surveys to find oil and gas and groundwater, said its research using images from satellites and aircraft had identified elements on the ocean floor consistent with material from a plane.
"We identified chemical elements and materials that make up a Boeing 777... These are aluminium, titanium, copper, steel alloys and other materials," company representative Pavel Kursa told Australia's Channel Seven.
Another company official, David Pope, told the broadcaster: "We're not trying to say that it definitely is MH370. However, it is a lead we feel should be followed up." – April 30, 2014.
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