Kuala Lumpur, March 17 — Malaysia is under intense scrutiny as the search for the missing airliner enters its second week, with the perceptions that official response has been weak, making a difficult job much harder.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the criticism has been loudest in China, noting that Malaysia had never thought to search the homes of the two pilots of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 until Saturday after Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak declared that the airliner had been intentionally taken off course.
Malaysian police later said that investigations had cleared the pilots.
The newspaper reported that some US lawmakers have complained of a lack of information from the Malaysian investigators and a resistance to involving international law enforcement.
“It’s frustrating because of the lack of knowledge and because we’re dealing with the Malaysian government and we’re not getting a lot of info,” it quoted House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R., Texas) as saying.
The paper said Malaysia’s leaders and officials are being questioned robustly with the most stinging criticism over the search for Flight 370 coming from China.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Thursday urged Malaysia to step up search efforts and improve the coordination, it added.
After a week of mixed messages from Malaysian authorities, the weekend brought greater depth with the prime minister revealing more about the search than had been reported previously, saying satellite data had helped track the missing jet to two corridors — a northern arc from northern Thailand to the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in central Asia, or a southern one from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.
“And Mr. Najib Saturday made the point that Malaysia was giving up sensitive military radar data to countries such as the US and China to help locate Flight 370 — a big step for a relatively small country in a sometimes fractious neighbourhood,” the paper said.
