Official: No comment as MH370 talks end
Print Edition
OFFICIALS from Malaysia, China and Australia wrapped up two days of talks on the deep-sea search for missing flight MH370 yesterday, but made no announcements, amid expectations the operation will finish by August.
Officials said the closed-door gathering in Malaysia’s administrative capital Putrajaya paves the way for a tripartite meeting of transport ministers when search plans could be spelled out. No date for the meeting has been set.
The search is scouring the seabed within a designated 120,000-square-kilometer zone in the remote Indian Ocean where authorities believe the Malaysia Airlines passenger jet may have gone down.
That is expected to be completed by August, and the three countries have said the hugely expensive high-tech sonar search west of Australia will not be further expanded without “credible” new evidence pointing to a crash site.
Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation director-general Azharuddin Abdul Rahman declined comment on what was discussed in the meeting.
As the meeting began on Monday, an international network of MH370 next-of-kin released a statement repeating its call for the search to be extended and expanded, and for the full public disclosure and reassessment of data used to determine the suspected crash zone.
“The search for the plane and the truth of what happened is vital to look ahead and move on,” said the group, called Voice370.
“A decision to end the search is a cruel response to a desperate human crisis.”
The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 vanished on March 8, 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people aboard, mostly Chinese nationals.
Several pieces of debris that apparently drifted thousands of kilometers have been identified as being definitely or probably from the Boeing 777.
Voice370 reiterated its calls for an international effort to find and collect debris so no clues go unexamined. Recent bad weather has delayed the Indian Ocean search’s expected completion to August, Australian authorities have said.
Officials have said the cost of the search could be up to US$130 million.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
