Vietnam’s aviation authorities have denied allegations that Vietnamese air traffic controllers were tardy in contacting their Malaysian counterparts when they did not receive any signal from Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 at the time it vanished into thin air almost two months ago.
The denial came just one day after his Malaysian counterpart Datuk Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, director-general of the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA), accused Vietnamese air traffic controllers of breaching “protocol by enquiring about the missing Flight MH370 only 17 minutes after the plane vanished from radar on March 8,” according to newswire The Malay Mail Online.
At 1:19 am on March 8, Kuala Lumpur air traffic control ordered the Beijing-bound MH370 to change frequency to their Ho Chi Minh City counterparts, but the Vietnamese side only responded at 1:38 am that they were not contacted by the Boeing 777, Azharuddin told reporters at a MH370 press conference in the Malaysian capital city on May 2.
“If Ho Chi Minh City wasn’t contacted by the aircraft, the protocol is five minutes,” The Malay Mail Online quoted the DCA chief.
The plane went off radar at 1:21 am, according to the preliminary report on the incident released on May 1 by Malaysia.
Azharuddin also underlined that Vietnamese air traffic controllers should be held responsible for the missing plane, as MH370 had passed the Igari navigational waypoint in the East Vietnam Sea into the Ho Chi Minh flight information region (FIR).
Commenting on these arguments, Vietnam’s aviation chief Thanh said the fact is that both the air traffic controllers in Kuala Lumpur and HCMC were unable to determine whether MH370 had entered the Ho Chi Minh FIR or not at the time.
“Air traffic controllers from both sides lost signal of the flight on radar and it was likely that the pilot had changed direction right at the moment it was ordered to change frequency to the Ho Chi Minh FIR,” he said.
In the latest development, the CAAV sent a document to its Malaysian counterpart asking for the preliminary report on the disappearance of MH370.
The CAAV also demanded that the DCA verify the allegations its chief has made against Vietnamese air traffic controllers.
The Malaysia Airlines Fligth MH370 carrying 239 people disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 but no trace of the aircraft has been found so far.
The hunt for the missing plane was scaled back last week after coming up with nothing, despite an air and sea search of 4.64 million square kilometers of the southern Indian Ocean, according to AFP.
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Đăng ký: VietNam News
