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Malaysia’s Statements on Flight 370 and Plane Debris Rekindle Relatives’ Grief and Anger Malaysia’s Statements on Flight 370 and Plane Debris Exacerbate Tensions
(about 3 hours later)
HONG KONG — For many relatives of the 239 people who were on the Malaysia Airlines jet that vanished 17 months ago, there was little or no solace in the Malaysian prime minister’s announcement that a wing part found on a remote island in the Indian Ocean had been “conclusively confirmed” to be from the plane. HONG KONG — Malaysia’s handling of the discovery of a wing part that apparently came from the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has worsened frictions with its partners in the investigation, rekindled frustrations among the families of people who were aboard the plane and further dented the country’s battered credibility.
The grief, frustration and suspicion of the authorities that had begun to recede with the passage of time were rekindled, with many focusing their ire on Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia. Many questioned the timing and motives of the Malaysian prime minister, Najib Razak, who announced in the early hours of Thursday that the wing part had been “conclusively confirmed” to be from the missing plane. He spoke just before a news conference in Paris where French investigators were much more guarded, saying only that the experts had “very strong presumptions” that the part came from the plane, a Boeing 777.
Many questioned the timing and the motives of the announcement by Mr. Najib in the early hours of Thursday, which came before Boeing, the plane’s manufacturer, was prepared to verify that the part was from the missing airliner, Flight 370. French investigators would say only that there were “very strong presumptions” that the wing part, called a flaperon, was from the plane, a Boeing 777. Later on Thursday the Malaysian transportation minister, Liow Tiong Lai, clouded the picture further when he told reporters in Kuala Lumpur that a Malaysian team had found more aircraft debris on the French island of Réunion, where the wing part was discovered last week. The French authorities in Paris denied that any new aircraft debris had been found.
“It has always been the case that Najib just couldn’t wait to announce some sort of closure,” Wen Wancheng, 63, whose son was a passenger on Flight 370, said in a telephone interview from his home in Jinan, in eastern China. “Najib rushed to make an announcement. Since the accident, Najib has been rushing to make announcements, but he didn’t have any proof before. Now that he has this debris, he couldn’t wait to make an announcement.” The discrepancies between the Malaysian declarations and what others involved in the investigation, including experts from Boeing, were prepared to conclude about the evidence have created significant tensions between Malaysian and French officials, according to a person close to the investigation.
Mr. Najib is already the focus of intense scrutiny because of reports in The Wall Street Journal and The Sarawak Report, a website based in Britain, saying that investigators had found documents indicating that almost $700 million from a troubled state development fund was transferred to accounts believed to be controlled by him. Mr. Najib has domestic political worries, not least a scandal swirling around a troubled state investment fund that has put him under intense scrutiny. The Wall Street Journal and The Sarawak Report, a website based in Britain, have reported that documents found by investigators in Malaysia indicate that almost $700 million from the fund was transferred to accounts that Mr. Najib is believed to control.
The relatives of the Chinese passengers on Flight 370 have been vocal about their frustrations with Malaysia since the first hours after the plane’s disappearance. Though ground controllers lost contact with the plane about 40 minutes after takeoff, the authorities did not issue an alert about the missing plane for hours. In late July, Mr. Najib dismissed his deputy prime minister, who had publicly called on him to give a full account of the matter, and the country’s attorney general, who was one of the leaders of the investigation into the scandal.
Then, Malaysia spent a full week directing a major search-and-rescue effort focused on the Gulf of Thailand, along the plane’s scheduled flight path, even though the Malaysian military had tracked an aircraft flying in nearly the opposite direction — westward and out into the Indian Ocean — which investigators later determined was Flight 370. But exasperation with the Malaysian authorities dates to when the plane first disappeared, on a night flight from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing in the early hours of March 8, 2014. Ground controllers lost contact with the plane about 40 minutes after takeoff, but the authorities did not issue an alert about the missing plane for hours.
Eventually, based on the radar data and satellite signals received from the plane, investigators concluded that it must have gone down somewhere in the deep ocean west or southwest of Australia, and the Australian authorities have been searching the seabed there for 10 months but have not found anything. Tony Abbott, the Australian prime minister, said on Thursday that the effort would continue because “we owe it to the hundreds of millions of people who use our skies.” Then, Malaysia spent a full week directing a major search-and-rescue effort focused on the Gulf of Thailand, along the plane’s scheduled flight path, even though the Malaysian military had tracked an unidentified aircraft flying in nearly the opposite direction — westward and out into the Indian Ocean — which investigators later concluded was Flight 370.
Jean-Paul Virapoullé, the mayor of St.-André, in Réunion, the island where the wing debris was found, said in a statement that his town would organize a “meticulous search” of the beaches there next week. Eventually, based on the radar data and automated satellite signals received from the jet, investigators concluded that it had flown on for hours more, and probably ran out of fuel and crashed in the Indian Ocean west or southwest of Australia. Searchers began working from the air, and later scanning the deep ocean floor with sonar devices, but nothing has been found there.
The wing part was the first tangible trace of the plane to turn up.
For many people who had loved ones aboard Flight 370, the identification, or near-identification, of the object only intensified their desire to know how and why the jet had veered off course and flown unnoticed into remote ocean waters.
Chinese citizens made up about two-thirds of the 239 people on the plane, and in Beijing, relatives of the victims viewed Mr. Najib’s announcement with skepticism or outright disbelief.
On Thursday morning, about 20 relatives gathered outside the Malaysia Airlines office in Beijing, demanding to talk to airline representatives and to be flown to Réunion. More than two dozen police officers kept them from entering the office building.
“We don’t accept this, this is not closure,” said Dai Shuqing, who had five relatives on the plane, including her sister. “The Malaysians want to lie to the whole world, but they cannot lie to us. We will persevere and keep digging.”
Others outside the airline’s office held signs with slogans such as “Malaysia hides the truth.” Later in the day, some of the relatives moved the demonstration to Boeing’s offices in the city.
Under international aviation conventions, Malaysia is leading the overall Flight 370 investigation because the aircraft was registered in Malaysia and took off from Kuala Lumpur. The ocean search is being led by Australia, whose ports are nearest the search area. But the wing part found on Réunion is being examined at a laboratory near Toulouse, France, because it washed ashore on French territory. The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened an inquiry into the crash because four French citizens were aboard the flight.
Though Malaysian officials appeared eager to reach conclusions swiftly and put the mystery of Flight 370 behind them, Tony Abbott, the Australian prime minister, said on Thursday that the ocean search effort would continue. “We owe it to the hundreds of millions of people who use our skies,” he said.
Meanwhile, Jean-Paul Virapoullé, the mayor of St.-André, Réunion, near where the wing debris was found, said on Thursday that his town would organize a “meticulous search” of the beaches there next week.
“If it can soothe the terrible pain of these hundreds of families, the city of St.-André, with the agreement of the relevant international authorities, is ready to erect a memorial for the people who are missing,” the mayor said in the statement.“If it can soothe the terrible pain of these hundreds of families, the city of St.-André, with the agreement of the relevant international authorities, is ready to erect a memorial for the people who are missing,” the mayor said in the statement.
David Griffin, an Australian scientist who has mapped ocean currents in the area, said on Thursday that he believed more debris from Flight 370 could wash up on Madagascar, the much larger island to the west of Réunion. The person close to the investigation said that volunteers on Réunion turned in some additional debris to French aviation officials on the island on Thursday, but that a preliminary evaluation indicated that none of the objects were from a plane.
Still, David Griffin, an Australian scientist who has mapped ocean currents in the area, said on Thursday that he believed more debris from Flight 370 could wash up on Madagascar, the much larger island nation to the west of Réunion.
“There could be a very large amount of debris floating, or a very small amount,” said Mr. Griffin, who is with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Australia. “I am slightly surprised that something turned up at Réunion, rather than Madagascar, because Madagascar is so much bigger.”“There could be a very large amount of debris floating, or a very small amount,” said Mr. Griffin, who is with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Australia. “I am slightly surprised that something turned up at Réunion, rather than Madagascar, because Madagascar is so much bigger.”
The search for debris was another source of frustration with the Malaysians, but this time the ire did not come from relatives of passengers. Wen Wancheng, 63, whose son was on the aircraft, said finding one wing part did not resolve the mystery of Flight 370. “The sort of closure the families want is to know what exactly happened to the plane, and have the bodies returned,” he said by telephone from Jinan, in eastern China.
The Malaysian transportation minister, Liow Tiong Lai, told reporters in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday that a Malaysian team had found more aircraft debris on Réunion and had turned it over for analysis. He mentioned “a window, plane window, and also some aluminum foil,” as well as unspecified other items. But the French authorities in Paris denied that anything new had been found or submitted to them. That sentiment was shared by other relatives of Flight 370 victims around the world, some of whom said that the discovery of the wing part, known as a flaperon, only intensified the mystery.
A person familiar with the investigation said on Thursday that considerable tension had developed between French and Malaysian officials over the public pronouncements by Mr. Najib and Mr. Liow. “Ultimately in the end for the families to have a sort of closure, we need to know why it ended up in the ocean, what happened,” Sara Weeks, whose brother Paul was a passenger, said in an interview with Australian radio from Christchurch, New Zealand. “It is really important for everyone because if that plane can go missing, another one can.”
For many people who had loved ones aboard Flight 370, the identification, or near-identification, of the wing part only intensified their desire to know why the jet had veered off its intended route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, in the early hours of March 8, 2014, flown out over the Indian Ocean and disappeared without a trace — until now. For some, the longing for more evidence has only grown stronger.
On Thursday morning, about 20 relatives gathered outside the Malaysia Airlines office in Beijing, demanding to talk to airline representatives and to fly to Réunion. More than two dozen police officers kept them from entering the office building. “It’s a piece of flaperon, it’s not my husband,” said Jacquita Gonzales, the wife of a Flight 370 crew member, Patrick Gomes. Ms. Gonzales was one of a small group of family members who spoke to reporters on Thursday in the Malaysian city of Petaling Jaya.
“We don’t accept this; this is not closure,” said Dai Shuqing, who had five relatives on the plane, including her sister. “I don’t even know if our families have actually boarded the plane. Based on all these signs, it is just a man-made disaster. The Malaysians want to lie to the whole world, but they cannot lie to us. We will persevere and keep digging.” “Although they found something, it’s not the end,” she added. “They still need to find the whole plane and our spouses as well. We still want them back.”
Others outside the airline’s office held signs with slogans such as “Malaysia hides the truth.” Later in the day, some of the relatives moved the demonstration to Boeing’s office.
Chinese citizens made up about two-thirds of the people on the plane, and in Beijing, their relatives viewed Mr. Najib’s announcement with skepticism or outright disbelief.
“I don’t believe anything that comes out of the mouth of any Malaysian government officials,” said Steve Wang, whose 57-year-old mother was on the plane. “All the families learned that the hard way.”