MH370: Malaysia has given its all

KUALA LUMPUR: Najib Tun Razak said Malaysia has given its all to find Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 missing since March 8, and drawn solace from the assistance granted to the country from around the world.

“We have shared, and received military radar data, putting the search above national security,” the prime minister noted when addressing the Putrajaya Forum 2014 here today.

The search, he said, led to assets from dozens of countries being combined and deployed in a truly global effort.

“Over the course of the past month, we have seen Chinese ships entering Vietnamese waters to search for the plane,” he said, citing an example of the level of co-operation seen during the search operation.

Najib said these challenges were tackled with assistance from Malaysia’s friends in Asean, and depended on relationships forged outside of formal Asean structures.

“Alongside strengthening Asean, our task is also to embrace wider collaboration on security,” he said at the forum which carried the theme ‘Strengthening Security and Regional Stability’.

It was organised in conjunction with the 14th Defence Services Asia (DSA) Exhibition and Conference from today until April 17.

Flight MH370 with 239 people aboard left the KL International Airport at 12.41 am and disappeared from radar screens about an hour later, while over the South China Sea. It was to have arrived in Beijing at 6.30 am on the same day.

A multinational search was mounted for the aircraft, first in the South China Sea and then in the Melaka Strait and Andaman Sea, and now in the southern Indian Ocean.

Analysis of satellite data indicated that the plane flew along what is called the ‘southern corridor’ and that its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth.

Najib announced on March 24, seventeen days after the disappearance of the aircraft, that Flight MH370 “ended in the southern Indian Ocean”.

- Bernama