A relative of a passenger of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 spoke to journalists in Putrajaya, Malaysia, on Thursday. Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
HONG KONG — The Malaysian government declared on Thursday that the loss of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 last March was an accident according to the terms of an international air agreement and that the 239 passengers and crew members aboard the plane were presumed dead.
While Malaysian officials had said last spring that the plane appeared to have been lost with all aboard, the step on Thursday cleared the way for death certificates to be issued for the passengers and crew members. It also makes it quicker and easier for Malaysia Airlines and its insurers to pay compensation to the next of kin — although litigation over the amount could continue for years.
But the official declaration did nothing to clear up the mystery of what happened to the plane. The Australian government, which is coordinating a search by four vessels of the sea floor in the southern Indian Ocean, said that efforts to find debris from the crash would continue.
“Australia, Malaysia and China remain committed to the search,†the Australian government said in a statement. “We remain cautiously optimistic the aircraft will be found.â€
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Malaysia Declares Flight 370 an Accident
Malaysia Declares Flight 370 an Accident
Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, the director general of Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation, proclaimed the crash of Flight 370 an accident, paving the way for compensation claims.
Video by RTM, via Reuters on Publish Date January 29, 2015. Photo by RTM, via Reuters.
Speculation about the cause of the aircraft’s disappearance has included the possibilities that a rogue pilot diverted the flight, that there was a hijacking or that there was a fire on board. Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, the director general of Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation, cautioned that without the flight recorders, “there is no evidence to substantiate any speculations as to the cause of the accident.â€
Flight 370 disappeared March 8 during what was supposed to be a routine, six-hour flight to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital. But the plane, a Boeing 777, mysteriously did a U-turn, and its main communications systems were disabled, as it reached an area over the Gulf of Thailand where the pilots should have been changing from Malaysian to Vietnamese air traffic control.
Malaysian radar subsequently tracked the aircraft as it flew west across northern Peninsular Malaysia, making a couple of turns, and then disappeared toward the northern end of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
Automatic pings transmitted by the plane’s engines to a satellite over the Indian Ocean showed that the engines continued to operate for another six hours; analyses by aerospace and telecommunications companies later suggested that the plane had turned roughly south after passing the north end of Sumatra and continued flying until it ran out of fuel.
Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation declared the loss of the Boeing 777 to have been an accident under the rules of an agreement known as the Chicago Convention.
“We have concluded that the aircraft exhausted its fuel over a defined area of the southern Indian Ocean and that the aircraft is located on the sea floor close to that defined area,†Mr. Rahman said.
Liu Jiani, a woman from Nanjing who lost a grandfather and grandmother on the flight, said that many of the Chinese families with loved ones on the plane were likely to be angered, rather than comforted, by Malaysia’s announcement. Many relatives continue to be skeptical about the authorities’ account of the plane’s disappearance and of the efforts made to find it.
“This announcement is meaningless,†Ms. Liu said in a telephone interview. “It will only make the families angry. It won’t make us sit down and talk about compensation.â€
She said she was virtually certain that Malaysia was hiding information about the plane — an accusation strenuously denied by Malaysian officials.
“We don’t believe we should be discussing compensation if you don’t first reveal the truth,†she added.
In a symptom of the sensitivities surrounding the missing plane, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a long response to the Malaysian government’s announcement. In it, a spokeswoman for the ministry, Hua Chunying, asked the Chinese families of lost passengers to “believe that the party and the government have always been worried and concerned for everyone, and have always been alongside everyone.â€
Ms. Hua said the Chinese government would strive to “safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the passengers’ families.â€
In Beijing, China’s prime minister, Li Keqiang, said the search for the missing plane should not flag. “For all the families who have suffered tragedy and for all of us, this is a difficult moment,†Mr. Li said of Malaysia’s announcement during an appearance with the visiting French prime minister, Manuel Valls, according to the state-run China News Service.
Paul Hayes, the safety and insurance director of Ascend, a global aviation consulting firm, said that Malaysia’s decision to declare the crash an accident, as opposed to an act of violence, would have no practical effect on compensation for the families of passengers and crew members, who would be eligible for payments either way. Similarly, Malaysia Airlines can collect compensation from its insurers whether the plane’s disappearance was an accident or an act of violence, although the different insurance syndicates might need to compensate one another if the crash was proved to have been caused by violence.
James Healy-Pratt, a partner and head of the aviation department at Stewarts Law, based in London, said, “Culturally, this is a highly sensitive declaration because there were a lot of families who, in the absence of any evidence of their loved one being dead have believed they are still alive.â€
“However, there are many others who have been waiting to obtain the legal death certificates that will assist them in making compensation claims against Malaysia Airlines and its insurers,†he said.
Of the 227 passengers aboard Flight 370, roughly two-thirds were Chinese. Until now, some Chinese families have been reluctant to seek the compensation that airlines generally award in the event of a plane crash, as mandated by international law. According to a 1999 convention of the International Civil Aviation Organization, families would be entitled to a minimum compensation from the airline of around $174,000 per passenger. Further compensation could be awarded through a negotiated settlement or, if the families sued, through the courts.
Mr. Healy-Pratt said that the international rules gave families up to two years from the date of the flight’s disappearance to file a compensation claim, meaning that relatives would have until March 2016 to do so.
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