After 27 days of the longest and largest ever multi-national sea-air-satellite search of the missing MAS Boeing 777 from South China Sea to the Straits of Malacca; from the Andaman Sea to the Northern and Southern corridors; and now to the Indian Ocean, no clue has been uncovered with regard to the whereabouts of MH370.
The MH 370 “black boxes” – which records flight data and cockpit voice communications – is now the only hope for clues to the mystery of the flight’s March 8 disappearance or the mystery may never be solved. Time is fast running out as there are only three days left to retrieve MH370 boxes as their battery-powered signal usually last only about 30 days.
The entry of the British nuclear submarine, HSM Tireless, to join the search for Flight MH370 from Perth, has made it an eight-nation sea-undersea-and-air search involving Australia, Malaysia, China, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, the United States and United Kingdom.
However, despite a search involving 12 planes and 10 ships and now one submarine, with more than 100 men and women in the air and more than 1,000 at sea, the prospects of the 27-day search of the missing MH370 Boeing 777 have become increasingly pessimistic, forlorn and desperate with no one any the wiser as to where the Malaysia Airlines jet hit the sea.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority has stopped giving details of objects found in the sea, preferring to say simply “nothing significant found” at the end of a day’s searching.
Without any single clue so far and the likelihood that the debris field of the MH370 could be spread over a thousand miles after 27 days of the mysterious mishap on March 8, the warning of the former Australian air force chief, Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston, who is leading the international search, that the missing Malaysian Airlines planes “might never be found” must weigh heavily not only on the loved ones of the 239 passengers and crew onboard MH370, the international community of well-wishers world-wide but also on all Malaysian MPs.
It is very somber to be reminded by Houston that Australia took 60 years to locate HMS Sydney which was lost off Western Australia during the second world war and was not discovered until 2008.
Yesterday, the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar has added to the gloom when he said that the MH370 may never be solved and the authorities may never learn what caused the mysterious disappearance of the Flight MH370. The current meeting of Parliament ends next Thursday on April 10.
While we hope and pray that the black boxes could be retrieved in the next three days, Malaysian MPs, whether Pakatan Rakyat or Barisan Nasional, must think hard and fast whether Parliament should adjourn next Thursday utterly lost and indecisive if it becomes increasingly unlikely that the black boxes of the missing Malaysian Airlines (MAS) aircraft MH370 is going to be retrieved in the coming weeks and months. The Prime Minister and the Cabinet has yet to respond to the call for the establishment of an Opposition-headed Parliamentary Select Committee on MH370 disaster.
Time is not only running out for the retrieval of the “black boxes” before their batteries expire, time is also running out for the Malaysian Parliament to play a meaningful role in the MH370 disaster before Parliament adjourns next Thursday.
I call on the Cabinet meeting tomorrow not to delay any further and to endorse the establishment of an Opposition-headed Parliamentary Select Committee on MH370 next week before Parliament adjourns on April 10, to send a clear and unmistakable message, both nationally and internationally, that the Malaysia has nothing to hide and is prepared to find answers to the thousand-and-one questions which have surfaced in the past four weeks, not just about the “what, how and why” about the events leading to the disappearance of Flight MH370 on March 8, but also a whole series of questions and controversies surrounding the disappearance of the Triple Seven and the Search-and-Rescue (SAR) Operation.
Parliament will be committing an unpardonable dereliction of duty if Parliament adjourns next Thursday with absolutely no concrete parliamentary measures as to the role Malaysian MPs can play not only in finding answers to the many questions raised in the MH370 Disaster, but in help restoring national and international confidence in the transparency, good governance and international reputation of Malaysia.