KUALA LUMPUR: China’s ambassador to Malaysia Huang Huikang today said that Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak chose the right word when he announced the last position of flight MH370 in a briefing last week.
Speaking to reporters this afternoon, Huang defended Najib for using the word ‘ended’.
He said Najib had to use the word to avoid repercussions as the families of the Chinese passengers on board the plane are hoping that their loved ones are still alive.
“Najib Razak has chosen the word ‘ended’ instead of ‘crash’ or ‘lost’. I fully understood why because the purpose is to avoid any harmful meaning,”
“Chinese family members are still hoping that their loved ones are alive thus if Najib chose the word ‘crash’ or ‘lost’ it will be a big blow to the family members,” Huang said.
Huang is not the first to defend Najib as last Monday, Acting Transport Minister Hishamuddin Hussein said that claims of the plane having crashed was “totally erroneous”.
“There was no mention of a crash or that there were no survivors at all,” said Hishammuddin.
On March 24 Najib announced that new satellite analysis has concluded that the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 has ‘ended’ in the southern Indian Ocean, bringing to end a 17-day mystery of the fate of the runaway jetliner.
‘We are like brothers’
The newly appointed Huang stressed that the focus now should be on the search and rescue effort and that China was in full support of the Malaysian government in its effort to locate the ill fated aircraft.
“I think it is best for us to focus on the effort than to argue about the word. All of us want hard evidence as soon as possible,”
“China is in full support of Malaysian government and we will do our best to offer our help in order to locate the missing flight,” Huang added.
Huang then clarified that the Chinese government has never been angry with Malaysia and refuted claims that they were dissatisfied with the way Malaysia is handling the investigation.
“We have been good friends for many years, we are like brothers.
“We never said that we are angry with Malaysian government nor did we say that we are dissatisfied with them. All of the accusation is not true,” he disclosed.
MH370 went missing from civilian radar an hour after takeoff when it was flying over the South China Sea. The aircraft was picked up by Malaysian military radar an hour later on the west of Peninsula Malaysia flying towards the Andaman Sea but it was assumed to be on the direction of the air traffic control.
The flight transponder which tracks the plane was switched off. Investigators now believe that the plane was last flying over the Indian Ocean, based on the ‘pings’ sent out by it which was picked up by the Inmarsat satellite.
The plane is suspected to have flown some five hours before its “pings” went missing. Majority of the passengers on board were Chinese nationals. The focus of the search is now centered some 2,500km southwest of Perth, Australia.
