AIR traffic controllers in Kuala Lumpur and Ho Chi Minh failed to follow certain protocols, leading to the loss of precious minutes in the activation of search and rescue operations for missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370.

The MH370 Safety Investigation Team’s official report, released today, said these lapses occurred as the plane entered Vietnam airspace where it made a turn back while en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014.

KL air traffic control had transferred watch on the plane to Ho Chi Minh three minutes early but thereafter Vietnamese controllers did not notify KL when two-way communication were not established with MH370, the report said.

KL should then have initiated contact with Ho Chi Minh but did not, relying instead on information provided by MAS Flight Operations.

It was previously reported that MAS had looked at MH370’s projected flight route and mistaken it for the plane’s live flight path. 

“By this time, the aircraft had left the range of radars visible to the KL air traffic control. It is noted that about one minute elapsed from the last transmission from MH370 and the SSR (secondary surveillance radar) being lost from the radar display. 

“The air traffic controllers of both centres did not initiate the various emergency phases as required then, thereby delaying the activation of the alerting and search and rescue operations,” the report said.

Ho Chi Minh made the mistake of not notifying Malaysia at the right time,” said Kok Soo Chon, the lead investigator on the safety investigation team at a press briefing in Putrajaya, today.

The former Department of Civil Aviation chief said there was no record to suggest that KL air traffic controllers had taken any action to alert the Royal Military Air Force (RMAF) Joint Air Traffic Control Centre after it became known that control tower had lost contact with MH370,

“There is no evidence to suggest that the air traffic controllers at KL ACC (area control centre) had kept continuous watch on the radar display. 

“KL ACC controllers did not comply fully with established ATC procedures,” said Kok, reading from the report.

He said both KL and Ho Chi Minh controls had been uncertain about MH370’s position at some point, calling for better command of the English language in the coordinating process of both authorities.

The report concluded that investigations had been unable to determine the cause of the plane’s disappearance due to lack of evidence as neither its wreckage nor black boxes had been found.

All other aspects of the probe, such as the state of the pilot, first officer and crew members, the cargo on board and aircraft maintenance, had not yielded anything suspicious.

Kok said the report was focused only on the safety aspects and not the search, which was the jurisdiction of another body.

MH370 was last detected on military radar north of Sumatra, near the Andaman Islands, before it presumably turned southward towards the Indian Ocean.

The flight is believed to have ended there. – July 30, 2018.