The search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 is costing more than it should, said an aviation expert, adding that Malaysian aviation officials did not follow the proper protocols.
The aviation expert, Des Ross, also said the officials know more than they are letting on, suggesting there’s some kind of cover-up or conspiracy.
“If proper protocols had been followed, we would not be looking for the aircraft today,” he said, according to the Malaysian Insider.
He said that the official version of what happened to the plane does not add up. “The flight had never entered Cambodian airspace,” Ross said, added there was confusion initially after the plane went missing with 239 people on board on March 8.
Ross also suggested there’s a lot of information that hasn’t been released.
“What is the secret they were guarding? Why is there still no information in the public domain about what happened that night during the first four hours?” Ross said, via Free Malaysia Today.
He also said there was separate recordings of the voice coordination between air traffic controllers in Kuala Lumpur, where the plane departed, and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam as well as recorded communications between air defense officers and air traffic controllers in Kuala Lumpur.
“Nobody can tell us that the recordings do not exist,” he said.
He also said Australia could also be a culprit in a cover-up. Both Malaysia and Australia “could be accused of covering up vital information which would help the families and independent investigators to work out what happened,” he added.
Meanwhile, the hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in a remote patch of the Indian Ocean is progressing well but will likely take many months because of the huge area involved, an Australian official said Friday.
Peter Foley, an Australian search coordinator, said there is optimism with two ships using high-tech sonar devices to search for the Boeing 777.
He said weather is improving and they hope to cover as much area as possible.
“We could get extraordinarily lucky and find it very early,” Foley told reporters after two days of talks with Malaysian authorities.
“We could find the debris field any day but the likelihood given the size of the area, we are in for the long haul. It will take many months,” he said.
Despite a massive air and sea search, not a single confirmed piece of debris from the plane has been found.
The ship Discovery, provided by Dutch contractor Fugro, arrived Wednesday at the search zone about 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) west of Australia. The GO Phoenix, a Malaysian ship that has been combing the area since early October, is in the Western Australian city of Fremantle getting fresh supplies.
A third ship, the Fugro Equator, is still mapping areas in the search zone and will join the hunt once that is complete, likely in the next week or so.
The search resumed in early October after being on hold for four months while crews mapped the seabed in the 60,000-square kilometer (23,000-square mile) search zone. The GO Phoenix has searched over 1,200 square kilometers (460 square miles) so far.
Australian officials earlier said the search could take up to a year.
