SEPANG (THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - The Government is requesting for two Malaysian representatives to be absorbed into Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) to assist in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370.
Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein said he hoped the representatives, from the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA), could be included soon.
"We hope they can be absorbed as soon as possible," he told reporters after inspecting the KLIA2 operation and readiness exercise on Saturday.
Mr Hishammuddin said the ministerial committees on MH370, which look at issues relating to next-of-kin, technicalities and deployment of assets, would also be sending officials to Perth to monitor and assist the search operation.
Flight MH370, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, left the Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 12.41am on March 8 and disappeared from radar screens about an hour later while over the South China Sea. It was to have arrived in Beijing at 6.30am on the same day.
A multinational search was mounted for the aircraft, first in the South China Sea and then, after it was learned that the plane had veered off course, along two corridors - the northern corridor stretching from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand and the southern corridor, from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.
Following analysis of satellite data, it was concluded that MH370 flew along the southern corridor and that its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth.