Malaysia will never give up search for the missing plane, Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said during visit to Australia on Thursday.
“We will never give up,” said Najib at a joint press conference, reports Bernama.
The search for a missing Malaysian airliner has united 26 countries of the world behind a common cause, the Malaysian PM said.
Speaking along the same lines was Najib’s Australian counterpart, Tony Abbott who stated his country’s pledge to continue the search without any timeline.
Najib met Abbott during his two-day working visit to have a first-hand look at the search being conducted out of this western Australian city for the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH370 that is believed to have gone down in the southern Indian Ocean.
Najib thanked all the 26 countries involved in the search operation, especially Australia for what he said was its spontaneous reaction to willingly answer Malaysia’s request for the search.
He expressed his gratitude to all the countries, for their commitment to search for the Boeing 777-200ER aircraft, and all the search team personnel who risked everything to search in the rough seas of the Indian Ocean and in severe weather.
Najib said he appreciated Australia’s commitment as an “invaluable friend” of Malaysia due to the country’s strong determination to proceed with the search without any timeline.
He said Australia also accepted Malaysia’s invitation to participate as an accredited representative in the investigation into the missing jetliner.
Flight MH370, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, left the KL International Airport at 12.41am on March 8 and disappeared from radar screens about an hour later while over the South China Sea. It was to have landed 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, after it was learned that the plane had veered off course, along two corridors – the northern corridor stretching from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand and the southern corridor, from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.
Following an unprecedented type of analysis of satellite data, UnitedKingdom satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat and the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) concluded that Flight MH370 flew along the southern corridor and that its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth.
Najib then announced on March 24, seventeen days after the disappearance of Boeing 777-200 aircraft, that Flight MH370 “ended in the southern Indian Ocean”.
Thursday, Abbott expressed the country’s commitment to continue the search “even if it takes a long time”.
“It is the most difficult search ever undertaken,” he said, adding that the search operation was based on small pieces of information gathered from experts based on satellite data.
He advised the family members of the passengers and crew to be patient.
Source: Dhaka Tribune