Malaysia declares MH370 disappearance an 'accident'

Malaysia has sought to draw a line under one of the greatest mysteries of the modern commercial jet age by declaring the disappearance 10 months ago of flight MH370 "an accident".

"It is . . . with the heaviest heart and deepest sorrow that, on behalf of the government of Malaysia, we officially declare Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 an accident . . . and that all 239 of the passengers and crew onboard are presumed to have lost their lives," said Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, director-general of the Southeast Asian country's department of civil aviation.

The conclusion, based on criteria set out in the Chicago Convention on aviation, comes after a huge search by vessels and aircraft from 13 countries for the Boeing-777 airliner.

The search, which will continue, has so far covered 18,600 square kilometres of ocean off Western Australia, where the doomed aircraft is presumed to have ditched into the sea after running out of fuel.

But no sign of the aircraft or debris from it has been found, in spite of a multinational effort that has seen rare co-operation between the navies of China, the US, Malaysia and Australia, which is leading the continuing search effort.

"We have endeavoured and pursued every credible lead and reviewed all available data. Despite all these efforts . . . the search unfortunately has yet to yield the location of the missing aircraft," Mr Azharuddin said.

The aircraft went missing less than an hour into a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, sparking a flurry of theories ranging from hijack, to a terrorist-inspired suicide mission by one or both of the pilots, or catastrophic mechanical failure.

There was even speculation that the aircraft had been diverted to an unknown location by unspecified military authorities because it was allegedly carrying sensitive material in its cargo hold.

Malaysian authorities later released a cargo manifest showing the flight was mostly carrying a load of fresh mangoes.

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Analysis never before conducted in a missing aircraft search of satellite data provided by Inmarsat, a UK satellite company, managed to plot a presumed course that showed flight MH370 ending in waters in the southern Indian Ocean, where depths extend to 6,000 metres.

There were 227 passengers, most from China, two pilots and 10 cabin crew on board.

"The government of Malaysia acknowledges that this declaration of the MH370 accident will be very difficult for the families and loved ones of the 227 passengers and 12 crew on board to consider, much less accept.

"Thirteen nations have also lost sons and daughters to this tragedy. It is nonetheless important that families try to resume normal lives, or as normal a life as may be possible after this sudden loss," Mr Azharuddin said.

Malaysia initially came under heavy criticism for a fumbled response to the disaster, including criticism that military officials were slow to explain why they had not automatically scrambled fighter jets when radar spotted that MH370 had veered back into Malaysian airspace.

The loss of flight MH370 also prompted an industry-wide effort, including the International Civil Aviation Organisation, the UN agency that sets global standards, to come up with standards to improve global tracking to ensure no aircraft ever again goes missing without trace.

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