PETALING JAYA: Deputy Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Bakri today said that he erred in responding to questions as to why the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) had not acted when they noticed MAS flight MH370 had made a turn back on March 8, before vanishing from the radar.
“With regards to my statement while debating the royal address, that RMAF assumed the turn back was directed by the air control tower, I would like to clarify that it was merely my assumption.
“After making further checks, I would like to clarify that my assumption was inaccurate,” said Rahim in a statement released by the ministry’s corporate communications unit.
Yesterday he told the Parliament session that the RMAF did not probe the unidentified aircraft signal caught on the military radar in the wee hours of March 8 because it ‘assumed’ the flight had been ordered to make the turn back by the civilian air traffic control tower located at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
“We thought the aircraft was non-hostile, we assumed the turn back was a directive from the control tower,” he had said.
Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, when asked about his deputy’s revelation during his daily MH370 press briefing yesterday, replied that he was unable to confirm his deputy’s statement.
Malaysian Airline flight MH370 went missing on a routine flight from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport to Beijing, China, with 239 passengers and crew on board.
The Boeing 777-200ER jetliner vanished from the civilian radar after take off and an hour later was spotted near Pulau Perak, by the military radar, heading towards the Andaman Sea.
In the latest development of the search and rescue efforts, Thailand announced today that their satellite had identified images of 300 objects that may be debris from the ill-fated plane located in the southern part of the Indian Ocean near Australia.
