KUALA LUMPUR, June 16 – Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak today reiterated Malaysia’s commitment to continue searching for the missing Malaysian jetliner MH370.
“On this hundredth day since MH370 went missing, remembering those on-board and their families. Malaysia remains committed to the search effort,” Najib said in his Twitter posting Sunday.
Beijing-bound Flight MH370 with 239 people aboard vanished from radar screens while over the South China Sea, about an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur at 12.41am on March 8. It was to have landed in Beijing at 6.30 am on the same day.
A massive multinational search was launched, first in the South China Sea and later extended to the Straits of Melaka and Andaman Sea, before search teams shifted their attention to the waters off western Australia in the Southern Indian Ocean, half way to Antarctica.
On March 24, Najib announced that Flight MH370 was believed to have ended in the southern Indian Ocean.
Since it went missing, the search operation team had been looking into every possible lead that emerged, from words of mouth to underwater signals, but still failed to locate MH370.
Malaysia has spent a total of RM27.6 million so far for the search of the missing plane.
Meanwhile, Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Chief Executive Officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya in a statement today said MAS would continue to support the search operations and support the next-of-kin.
He said it had been the longest and most painful 100 days in MAS history since the disappearance of the aircraft.
“We feel the families’ anguish, and like them, MAS continues to hope and seek answers that will bring us closer to finding out what happened to MH370,” he added.
Ahmad Jauhari said MAS’s thoughts and prayers remained with the families of the 239 persons on board the flight.
“The families have been on our minds throughout these past 100 days and will continue to do so for a long while to come.
“We feel the families’ pain, we miss our colleagues and friends on board MH370,” he further said.
Ahmad Jauhari said, MAS thanked the governments and agencies of Malaysia, Australia and China and the many nations that had come forward to search for MH370.
Despite the best efforts and resources over the last 100 days, this most extensive search in history had still not found answers, he added.
– BERNAMA
