KUALA LUMPUR, April 9 — The Barisan Nasional(BN) government is trying to prevent Parliament from examining the case of Flight MH370 by placing the investigations under external committees, Pakatan Rakyat (PR) lawmakers charged today.

DAP’s Gelang Patah MP Lim Kit Siang said that the terms of reference of a parliamentary select committee (PSC) would be more comprehensive than the investigation team and the three ministerial committees announced by Putrajaya to probe the plane’s airworthiness, the operational aspects of the flight, and human factors.

“A parliamentary select committee on MH370 should also investigate the whole series of events after the aircraft’s disappearance, which have provoked a thousand and one questions, controversies, confusion and conspiracy theories,” Lim said in a joint press conference with Seremban MP Anthony Loke and Pokok Sena MP Datuk Mahfuz Omar at the Parliament lobby here today.

According to Lim, among the issues that the PSC should investigate are whether the aviation disaster could have been avoided if the Malaysian military had intervened upon spotting the commercial plane on its radar, and whether more than a week had been wasted looking for the missing jet in the wrong places.  

The DAP adviser also said that a PSC on the missing Malaysia Airlines plane was necessary to review if the disaster warranted additional budgets to strengthen the country’s military and civil aviation system.

“The prime minister and the Cabinet should seriously reconsider their refusal to establish a parliamentary select committee on MH370 as Malaysia must show to the world that we have nothing to hide, both in the disaster and its crisis management,” Lim added.

PAS vice-president Mahfuz said it was regrettable that Putrajaya decided against holding a briefing on the disappearance of Flight MH370 for opposition lawmakers.

“Some questions are still not answered, like the prime minister’s statement that the flight had ended in the southern Indian Ocean. This shows that the government is trying to hide things,” said the Pokok Sena MP.

Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein announced last Saturday the formation of an international investigation team - which would probe the plane’s airworthiness, operational aspects of the flight, and human factors - as well as three ministerial committees that will deal with the next-of-kin of Flight MH370’s passengers, oversee the technicalities of the investigation, and supervise the deployment of search assets to locate the aircraft.

The three committees will be led by the Foreign Ministry, Transport Ministry and Defence Ministry respectively.

On Monday, Putrajaya again refused to brief PR MPs on the missing jetliner, even after the opposition pact submitted a formal request as required by a minister previously.

According to Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim, the briefing was unnecessary as the investigation was still ongoing and there were no new facts to be revealed.

DAP’s Loke criticised today the government’s stand, saying that a closed-door briefing for opposition lawmakers was necessary for Putrajaya to answer questions that had not been addressed in media conferences.

“This gives the wrong signal to the world, as if the government doesn’t dare to face its own MPs,” Loke said.

Australian authorities said today that two more electronic pulse signals have been detected in the Indian Ocean, though it is yet to be confirmed if the signals are coming from the aircraft’s black box.

The jetliner carrying 239 passengers and crew on board disappeared on March 8, less than an hour after departing the Kuala Lumpur International Airport here for Beijing.