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Admit your mistake over MH370, Pakatan tells Najib

by Jennifer Gomez
The Malaysian Insider
April 02, 2014

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak must admit that he made a mistake when he announced on March 24 that MH370 had ended in the southern Indian Ocean and later attempted to imply that he did not mean that the plane had crashed or that there were no survivors, opposition politicians said today.

DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang told reporters at the Parliament lobby that the mistake was obvious when Najib tabled a motion of sympathy for the families the day after making the announcement, implying that there were no survivors.

He said text messages were also sent out by MAS while its chief executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya had mentioned in a press conference that there were no survivors.

After the announcement caused anger and frustration among mainly families of the Chinese passengers, acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein defended Najib by saying the prime minister did not say the plane had crashed or there were no survivors.

Relatives of passengers said Putrajaya should apologise for prematurely claiming that the plane had crashed.

Datuk Mahfuz Omar (Pas-Pokok Sena) wanted to know if the government would be taking action against local media which had reported that the plane had crashed in the Indian Ocean, and implied that all those on board had died.

“The acting transport minister said they were considering taking action against international media that carried false reports on the missing plane.

“Are they going to take action against the media that carried the reports suggesting there were no survivors?” he asked.

Lim said Putrajaya should have released the transcript of the communications from the cockpit of the missing jetliner at the start and not now after more than three weeks.

The Transport Ministry had said in a statement on Monday that “Good night, Malaysian three seven zero”, was the last conversation between the air traffic controller and the cockpit of the missing jet.

It was previously reported that the last communication from the cockpit was “All right, good night”.

The statement also said Hishammuddin had instructed the investigating team to release the full transcript, which made available during a briefing to the next-of-kin of MH370’s passengers and crew.

Lim said he shared the anger and shame of Malaysians on the correction issued on the matter, following the revelation by China’s CCTV that the last words were different from what the Department of Civil Aviation had originally revealed.

“This is another mistake that should not have happened. It reflects poorly on the competence and transparency of our system of governance.”

He said the past 25 days since the plane went missing had exposed other mistakes and weaknesses, including the exact time the plane lost contact, on the air turn back and the Royal Malaysian Air Force’s supposed assumption that the turn back was ordered by the control tower.

Given these conflicting statements by the authorities, Lim said it was imperative that a parliamentary select committee on MH370 be set up to investigate its disappearance.

Lim added that the latest Merdeka Center survey revealed that 50% of respondents were not happy with the authorities’ handling of the MH370 crisis – something which should be taken seriously.

He said Putrajaya should not hit back at the rakyat by labelling them anti-nationalistic for expressing such views.

“It is because we love and take pride in how Malaysia is viewed in the eyes of the world, but it does not change the fact that the people have a lot of questions about the handling of the crisis,” he said.

The survey carried out by the Merdeka Center for Opinion Research among 1,005 respondents revealed that only 43% were satisfied with the way Putrajaya was dealing with the issue.

The majority of Chinese and Indian respondents were dissatisfied, at 74% and 59% respectively. Only 18% of Chinese and 36% of Indian polled said they were satisfied.

But 63% of Malay respondents expressed satisfaction with the handling compared with 30% who said they were not. – April 2, 2014.

11 Replies to “Admit your mistake over MH370, Pakatan tells Najib”

  3. Who should admit making mistakes?
    Those who prepared the press statement. They failed to explain that the words in the conclusion were based on pure speculation. One or more details could be wrong, if either the satellite data or the complex mathematical analysis was somehow faulty.
    Advisors who suggested reading that press statement late on a Monday night. Without any physical evidence of debris, there remains reasonable doubt the missing plane had actually crashed. What if the flight did not end in the southern Indian ocean? What if the plane managed to land somewhere? What if there are a few survivors?
    The security personnel who did not disperse the media at the hotel. They did not heed the advisory to give space to relatives of passengers.

  4. A massive earthquake struck japan a couple of years ago. The quake brought on a deadly tsunami and also a devastating nuclear plant meltdown.

    The quake was a pure act of god. It was unpreventable, unstoppable and unpredictable. The nuclear plant meltdown was therefore could be said to be due to an unpreventable, unstoppable and unpredictable act of god.

    Of course the nuclear plant was old and had flaws. The point still remains that had the quake and tsunami not happen the meltdown would not have taken place.

    Nevertheless the entire board of the nuclear plant decided to apologise to the japanese people.

    What about you MAS? And you too umno because your defence ministry obviously had failed in discharging their duty.

    Far from being apologetic you lot are actually still foolishly arrogant about the whole matter.

    1. Because we have been peaceful all these while. Told over and over again not to even raise your voice, be humble, be good girls. Brainwashed into that trend of thinking. If you even raise your voice, you are considered bad. With that, do you ever think you can really fight ?

  6. The Transport Ministry had said in a statement on Monday that “Good night, Malaysian three seven zero”, was the last conversation between the air traffic controller and the cockpit of the missing jet.
    It was previously reported that the last communication from the cockpit was “All right, good night”.

    I just wonder how the person in charge of the transcript can be erroneous on this as the intonation totally differs. This leave me to wonder again if they can make another mistake on the last conversation which might be “Good Bye Malaysian three seven zero” as the intonation is very close. If somebody actually says this, then we can narrow down to eliminate mechanical or structural failure of the plane, or even hijacking but element of sabotage . From there if we can identify the voice, we can again narrow down the culprit and avoid speculation.
    I as a concerned Malaysian would like to share my profound grief with all the friends, relatives or loved ones of all the passengers and crews on board MH370.
    My small gesture to take time off for this small comment is not out of any sinister motive or being branded as insensitive but trying my best to input something which can help to narrow down on all the speculations that cause a lot of distress to many families, especially the pilots and co pilots. Hope the authorities can look into this point and review the last message again carefully and falter no more.

    Since I am already here, I would like to comment and advice the government from this SAR operation which can be a blessing in disguise. The saying is always “ Out of every calamity there is an opportunity”. But let us also look at this “ Out of this calamity, let us look for the remedy”
    The gist of this is we complain about people who complain and mock at us for our SAR operations , especially the China Chinese. Some of the complaints are valid and some are baseless, but we can accept that because when people are in distress or in the blame game, they always look at the weakest link and pick up your mistakes, grainy mistakes can become mountainous. I really do not think we fared so badly in handling this SAR operation, given that this is unprecedented. But let me remind the government that some of the arrows that are shooting at us now is not that we are enemies but we are perceived as enemies, meaning that Malaysia is perceived as having a non transparent and non action orientated type of government. More as an opaque and shrouded with secrecy type of government and tolerate mediocrity. In actual fact and to my opinion the perception is not a perception but an undeniable truth on the style of our government. And since a thief is always a thief, we are being blamed as a thief though we come clean.
    Hope our government will wake up after this crisis and improve on this defect of governance.

    Hope we can see a silver lining out of this crisis if the government were to heed this dying call from the rakyat of Malaysia who wants a better Malaysia and be a proud Malaysian. Hope UMNO can change that “perception” of our government.

  8. Najib’s announcement that the ill-fated MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean tends to give people the impression that the MH370 case is closed and there is not much the government can do for the relatives of the missing (although that is not what Najib tried to say).

  9. WAS “Good night, Malaysian three seven zero” or “All right, good night” spoken in English or BM?
    If in English, mayb d original transcript was wrongly translated, U know dis England language veri difficult 2 kow tim 1 lah
    All right, good morning

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