MH370 Search Big Change: Independent Investigators

Malaysia is appointing an independent investigator to lead a team that will attempt to determine what happened to flight MH370, Malaysia’s Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said yesterday.

The team will include three groups:

1. An “airworthiness group” will examine “maintenance records, structures and systems”;
2. An “operations group” will examine “flight recorders and meteorology”; and
3. A ”medical and human factors group” will examine “psychology, pathology and survival factors”.

The team will have experts from Australia, China, the United States, Britain and France.

A multinational team is already trying to find floating debris and detect faint sound signals from the plane’s data recorders that could lead them to the plane’s location. Hishammuddin said there no new satellite images or data provides new leads for searchers. The focus now is fully on the ocean search, he said.

The cost of the search was immaterial compared to providing solace for families of those on board by establishing what happened, he said.

“I can only speak for Malaysia, and Malaysia will not stop looking for MH370,” he said.

Malaysian government has established a  ministerial committees to oversee issues relating to the next of kin of the 239 passengers and crew, the appointment of the investigation team, and the search operation. The Next of Kin Committee, led by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Hamzah Zainuddin, will provide families with updates about the search and offer them support.

A second committee, led by Deputy Minister of Transport Abdul Aziz Kaprawi, will oversee forming and appointingthe investigation team.

A third committee, led by Abdul Rahim Bakri, the deputy defence minister, will oversee the search operation.

Sources: Reuters, Agence France-Presse