Facing anger from families of Flight 370 passengers, Malaysia’s prime minister said Thursday his government will release its preliminary report on the plane’s disappearance.
In a TV exclusive, Najib Razak told CNN the report will be available next week.
“I have directed an internal investigation team of experts to look at the report, and there is a likelihood that next week we could release the report,” Najib said. Later in the interview with CNN’s Richard Quest, he gave a more definitive statement — saying the report will be released next week.
The report has already been sent to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the U.N. body for global aviation, but not made available to the public.ntial about the data?’
The ICAO told CNN about a safety recommendation in the report: Malaysia said the aviation world needs to look at real-time tracking of commercial aircraft. It’s the same recommendation that was made after the Air France Flight 447 disaster in 2009.
Earlier Thursday, the partner of one of the passengers accused Malaysian authorities of seeming “to be choosing to treat us as if we are the enemy as opposed to an interested party in helping to solve this mystery,”
We need a fresh start here,” Sarah Bajc, partner of passenger Philip Wood, said on CNN’s “New Day.”
“We’ve been sitting on opposite sides of the table. They have a briefing, they tell us what they know and we ask them questions. That’s just kind of broken. I think we need to start from scratch and sit down and have a positive dialogue.”
Families don’t “necessarily believe” that the Malaysian authorities are “withholding any new information other than the facts that we’ve already asked for,” she added.
A committee representing some of the Chinese families have posted 26 questions on the Chinese social media site Weibo.
Usually, such reports to the ICAO are public, says CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest.
“In most cases, the report is published because it’s not a controversial document,” he said. “It’s a statement of facts — what happened. And if there are any controversial or difficult facts, they can be redacted.”
Malaysia has insisted it has nothing to hide and is working to find answers.
Families plan to demand answers from Boeing
While pushing Malaysian authorities for answers, “we’re also extending our reach now,” Bajc said. Some of the questions the families have, including technical questions, “we will be bringing directly to Boeing. Boeing has a shareholders meeting next week. And if we’re not getting information directly from Malaysia Airlines and from the Malaysian government, we might as well try to go directly to the source.
“Boeing is a publicly traded company in the United States, and that puts them in a position of a little bit more fiduciary responsibility,” she said.
