KUALA LUMPUR, April 1 — Reporters covering an international aviation conference today were ejected midway by the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) director-general Datuk Azharuddin Abdul Rahman.
Organised by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the open-door conference held at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel here is primarily a trade association for more than 240 airlines around the world.
Azharuddin was going through the timeline of Malaysia Airlines’ (MAS) MH370’s mysterious disappearance on March 8 and the subsequent search mission, before stopping abruptly about a minute later, The Star daily reported its website.
“I'm sorry, is there any media here? I didn't know there are media here,” Azharuddin was quoted saying.
“I'm sorry, can I ask the media to stay out please?” he added.
According to The Star, Azharuddin refused to continue with his speech until the media left the hall and declined to take questions from reporters as he was leaving the conference a short while later.
The Malay Mail Online understands that reporters given full-access to the three-day conference were allowed back in right after Azharuddin delivered his keynote address.
The DCA director-general has come under fire for his handling of media conferences over the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 crisis.
Joining Azharuddin as speakers at the conference today were IATA director-general and chief executive officer Tony Tyler, Airports Council International (ACI) director-general Angela Gittens, Association of Asia-Pacific Airlines (AAPA) director-general Andrew Herdman and Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO) director-general Jeff Poole.
IATA’s annual Ops Conference, which began yesterday, deals with all issues related to safety, operations and infrastructure of the aviation industry.
The Boeing 777-200ER jetliner ferrying 239 people departed from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) to Beijing in the early hours of March 8, before it fell off the grid.
According to satellite data and security radar readings, MH370 veered westwards after it lost contact with ground control and is now believed to be in the Indian Ocean, southwest of Perth, Australia.
The international search for the missing aircraft has not been fruitful as searchers have yet to recover any plane debris since Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, citing satellite data, announced on March 24 that MH370 had ended somewhere in the vast compass of the southern Indian Ocean.
