A family member of a passenger aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 demonstrates outside the company’s offices in Beijing
The confusion and frustration that punctuated the investigation into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 erupted anew yesterday after officials offered conflicting levels of confidence on whether a piece of a wing found washed up on an Indian Ocean island last week came from the vanished plane.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s announcement in the pre-dawn hours yesterday that the part, known as a flaperon, did indeed come from the doomed aircraft was at odds with the message from authorities in France, the U.S. and Australia, who have stopped short of full confirmation.
The conflicting comments raised questions about why Malaysia had seemingly gone rogue with its announcement and infuriated many families of those on board the plane, who have waited more than 500 days for concrete clues into the fates of their loved ones.
About a dozen Chinese passenger relatives protested outside Malaysia Airlines’ offices in Beijing over the way the Malaysian authorities handled the announcement linking the plane debris to MH370.
They held signs, including one saying “Malaysia hides the truth,” and another expressing confidence that Chinese President Xi Jinping will help the relatives.
Dai Shuqin, the sister of one of the passengers, was among about a dozen Chinese relatives demonstrating outside the carrier’s offices.
“France is being cautious about it, but Malaysia is desperate to put an end to this case and run away from all responsibilities,” she said.
After several hours yesterday morning, the group was invited into a closed-door talk with airline officials.
Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai later reiterated Najib’s comments and said differences with other countries amounted to “a choice of words.”
“They want to continue with additional tests. We respect their decision,” Liow said of the French. “From our first observation, the color tone and all maintenance records that we have, we know. Our records show that it’s the same as MH370.”
He said there are “many other technical details that I do not have to reveal” but that confirm the part is from Flight 370.
Liow also said more apparent plane debris that might be from Flight 370 has been found on Reunion Island and sent to French authorities for verification. He said a Malaysian team found the objects, including a window and some aluminum foil.
“I can only ascertain that it’s plane debris,” Liow said. “I cannot confirm that it’s from MH370.”
The disappearance of the Boeing 777 jetliner while on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, has been one of the biggest mysteries in aviation history. Officials believe it crashed in the southern Indian Ocean, killing all 239 people on board, but the wreckage and the cause remain elusive.
“It is with a very heavy heart that I must tell you that an international team of experts has conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris found on Reunion Island is indeed MH370,” Prime Minister Najib Razak told reporters. The French territory is thousands of kilometers west of the area being searched for wreckage from the flight.
But at a news conference in Paris, Deputy Prosecutor Serge Mackowiak declined to confirm that the debris belonged to Flight 370, though he said there were strong indications that it did.
“The very strong conjectures are to be confirmed by complementary analysis that will begin tomorrow morning,” Mackowiak said. “The experts are conducting their work as fast as they can in order to give complete and reliable information as quickly as possible.”
The caution was typical of how France carries out air crash investigations. The French agency that usually handles such probes, known as the BEA, can take months if not years to lay out exhaustive conclusions in reports that last hundreds of pages. During the inquiries, they only rarely offer interim assessments and even more rarely comment.
The Australian government, which leads the seabed search for wreckage west of Australia, was also less certain than Malaysia, saying only that “based on high probability, it is MH370.”
Publicly, Australian officials withheld criticism of Najib’s announcement, with Australian Transport Minister Warren Truss saying Australia respected Malaysia’s right to make that call, given it is the government in charge of the investigation.
“Of course there is still some i’s not dotted and t’s not crossed. There is still a very small element of doubt,” Truss said.
Privately, however, there were questions about why Najib had moved forward with the statement before all countries had agreed. An Australian government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to comment publicly, said Malaysia wasn’t supposed to make the announcement, and had gone out on its own making a conclusive statement before getting the evidence to back it up.
Many families of those on board, who have waited nearly 17 months for tangible evidence, were fed up with the mixed messages.
“Why the hell do you have one confirm and one not?” said Sara Weeks, the sister of New Zealander Paul Weeks, who was on board. “Why not wait and get everybody on the same page so the families don’t need to go through this turmoil?”
Ross Tapsell, a Malaysia expert at the Australian National University, said he suspects Najib was trying to distract Malaysians from a corruption scandal. On Monday, Malaysia’s anti-corruption agency said that $700 million in Najib’s personal bank accounts came from donations, not from a debt-ridden state investment fund.
“He’s under so much political pressure at the moment,” Tapsell said. “I presume if he can try to move the conversation back to the MH370 stuff, it’s in his interests to do so.”
A U.S. official familiar with the investigation said the flaperon clearly is from a Boeing 777. However, a team of experts in France examining the part hadn’t yet been able to find anything linking it specifically to the missing plane, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because there was no authorization to talk publicly about the case.
With no other 777s or flaperons known to be missing, it makes sense that the part comes from Flight 370, but the U.S. and Boeing team members are merely trying “to be precise,” the official said.
Australia, which sent an official to France to help examine the flaperon, has said the find will not affect its sonar search of a 120,000-square kilometer expanse of seabed more than 4,000 kilometers east of Reunion Island.
That search, which began in October, has covered almost half that area without finding any clues.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told Melbourne Radio 3AW that the apparent discovery of Flight 370 wreckage “does seem very consistent with the search pattern that we’ve been using for the last few months.”
“Let’s hope we can turn something up,” he said. Eileen Ng, Kuala Lumpur, AP
China says confirmation points to crash
China’s Foreign Ministry has reacted to Malaysia’s confirmation by saying that the result points to a conclusion that the flight crashed. The statement by spokeswoman Hua Chunying went on to express sorrow for the passengers and deep sympathy for their families, and to demand that Malaysia make good on commitments to fully investigate the crash. In Kuala Lumpur, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that “we have to respect the feelings of the relatives and understand the inner torment they’ve suffered in the past days. Of course, the rescue work has to be continued. We agree with the Malaysia that we need to find out the truth of the accident.”
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