International
Ng Han Guan/AP
Malaysia Airlines said Thursday that it is closing the centers it set up to help the family members of those who disappeared almost two months ago when Flight MH370 vanished. The airline, which has been putting the relatives up in hotels, advised them to move out and return to their homes.
The Family Assistance Centers set up in various places around the world will be closed by May 7, the airline said.
“While Malaysia Airlines is committed to continuing its support to the families during the whole process, we are adjusting the mode of services and support,” said Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, group chief executive officer for Malaysia Airlines, in a news release.
“Instead of staying in hotels, the families of MH370 are advised to receive information updates … within the comfort of their own homes, with the support and care of their family and friends.”
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Malaysia Airlines said it would set up new centers in Kuala Lumpur and Beijing, and would make compensation payments as soon as possible to the next of kin.
A multination search is still underway for the plane, which went missing on March 8.
“Despite such an intensified search operation, probably the largest one in human history, we have to face the hard reality that there is still no trace of the aircraft, and the fate of the missing passengers and crew remains unknown till this day,” Ahmad Jauhari said.
Australia’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre announced early this week that its search operation in the southern Indian Ocean would be moving to a new phase, but not ending. In the new phase, international partners including Malaysia, Australia and China plan to intensify the underwater search for signs of the plane.
Malaysia on Thursday sent a report on the missing plane to the International Civil Aviation Organization, a U.N. body that governs global aviation.
The MH370 Preliminary Report, produced by Malaysia’s Ministry of Transport, detailed the circumstances around the plane’s disappearance, including a timeline of radar transmissions and locations based on satellite data.
The report revealed that officials apparently did not notice the plane had gone off radar for 17 minutes — and it was four hours before a search and rescue operation was ordered.
The report also included safety recommendations based on the difficulty of pinpointing the plane’s last known location.
“While commercial air transport aircraft spend considerable amounts of time operating over remote areas, there is currently no requirement for real-time tracking of these aircraft. There have now been two occasions during the last five years when large commercial air transport aircraft have gone missing and their last position was not accurately known,” the report said.
It recommended that the International Civil Aviation Organization consider introducing a standard for real-time tracking of commercial flights.
The Boeing 777-200ER, which had 239 passengers and crew on board, disappeared from civilian radars on March 8 while on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Relatives of those on board have accused the Malaysian government of bungling the early phase of the search and of keeping them in the dark about details of the incident.
The search moved to the Malacca Strait a week after the disappearance, after radar data confirmed the aircraft had turned back from its intended course. Satellite data eventually showed that the plane likely flew to a southern part of the Indian Ocean, off the coast of western Australia.
Al Jazeera and Reuters
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