KUALA LUMPUR, March 13 — Malaysia’s handling of the crisis sparked by the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines’ (MAS) MH370 is the “worst” the industry has seen, said a former chief of the United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

The aviation authority’s former managing director Peter Goelz in an interview on CNN said Malaysia, despite being a signatory to an international treaty on aviation, has not abided by the procedures outlined.

“This is the worst I’ve seen in recent times,” said Goelz, in a short excerpt of the interview published on CNN’s website today.

“There’s a reason for this. You know, anytime there’s an accident, an international one like this, there’s chaos during the first 24, 36 hours. That’s why there’s a treaty that everyone signs, the Malaysians have signed,” he was quoted saying, referring to the Convention on International Air Transportation, under the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).

The treaty, Goelz said, outlines the investigation process, the involvement of other related countries and dispersal of information, among others.

“The Americans are not being involved in the way in which they should as an accredited representative.

“They have the rights under the international treaty (but) they have not had the kind of access they should and that’s why the radar data could have been mis-analysed,” he said.

Goelz was referring to reports that the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) had tracked MH370 as it reversed course after it lost contact with ground control, and charted its path to the Straits of Malacca.

The RMAF has since clarified that it observed a plane doing so but could not confirm it if had been MH370.

The Beijing-bound jumbo jet carrying 239 people disappeared from the radar screens at Subang Air Traffic Control shortly after take-off early Saturday.

The search and rescue operations for Boeing 77-200 plane is currently led by the Department of Civil Aviation director-general Datuk Azharuddin Abdul Rahman.

Goelz asserted that invoking the treaty would give Malaysia access to a comprehensive network and structure necessary to resolve the conundrum of the missing aircraft.

He alleged that Malaysian authorities were refusing to do so owing to “national pride”.

He also suggested that Malaysia may not fully grasp the magnitude of its undertaking, and could have underestimated the complexity involved.

“When TWA Flight 800 crashed 9 miles off the coast of Long Island in a few hundred feet of water… we saw it go down and the wreckage was on fire but it took us three days to find the wreckage.

“It is extraordinarily hard to find wreckage in open ocean,” he said drawing parallels the complications faced by the US in the 1996 crash which took the lives 230 people on board.

Six days of searching using the aerial and naval assets of 12 nations has not turned up a single shred of evidence from MH370.

Goelz then pleaded with Malaysian authorities to tap the expertise of NTSB’s team made up of investigators as well as technical advisers from Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) who are already here to assist.

“Aviation cannot stand a vacuum. Boeing and the rest of the international community will not allow a cloud to be over an aircraft that is as ubiquitous as the 777.

“They are going to keep after this until they find it and solve it,” he added.