MH370 - Pilots and passengers innocent until we find otherwise, says Malaysia

Transport minister acknowledges relatives' frustration but police bundle angry Chinese relatives out of press briefing.

Tania Branigan in Beijing
theguardian.com, Wednesday 19 March 2014 12.25GMT

A relative of a Chinese passenger on the missing plane breaks

down as she speaks to the media at Kuala Lumpur airport. Photograph: Azhar Rahim/EPA

The pilots, crew and passengers of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane must be treated as innocent until proven otherwise, Malaysia's transport minister has said.

Police bundled relatives of Chinese passengers on flight MH370 out of his briefing after they burst in to vent their anger and unfurl a banner reading "tell the truth". One woman was dragged out as she wailed: "Where are they?" at journalists.

Hishammuddin Hussein acknowledged the growing frustration and anguish of family members, telling reporters: "One of our main priorities is how to manage emotions and how to appease families. We are sending a high-level team to Beijing to explain what we are doing.

"We do understand their concerns and are trying our very best. It's heart-wrenching."

Flight MH370 vanished early on 8 March en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board. Malaysian officials have said they believe the plane was diverted deliberately, but say they are not ruling out any possible reasons for the decision to turn it off course.

Authorities told reporters that analysis of captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah's flight simulator showed a data log had been deleted on 3 February and that experts were trying to retrieve the deleted material.

The pilot had used his simulator for some years and showed it in a YouTube video he posted demonstrating to people how to tune their air conditioning to save electricity.

Hishammuddin added: "Passengers, pilots and crew remain innocent until proven otherwise. For the sake of their families we ask you to refrain from any speculation that might make an already difficult time even harder."

He said that all countries with citizens on board had responded to requests for background information, bar Russia and Ukraine, and that no relevant information had been found.

The transport minister also said that reports of a possible sighting of the plane on 8 March over a remote island in the Maldives had been ruled out by military officials there. He said the northern and southern arcs of the search were of equal importance.

Twenty-six countries are searching 2.24m square nautical miles of land and sea for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet. The area stretches from central Asia down to the southern Indian Ocean.

Malaysian officials have urged countries on the plane's potential path to reanalyse their military radar data in the hope of narrowing down the area. On Tuesday, they said they had received more radar information but could not disclose details as it came from other countries.

A multinational team of investigators has established that the plane's last contact with satellites was at 8.11am, but so far cannot place its location at that time any more specifically than along the immense search arcs.

Wang Yongzhi, from Beijing, whose wife was one of more than 150 Chinese passengers on board the flight when it vanished, said: "Personally, I hope it has been hijacked and she is still alive.

"I hope maybe she can call me, and ask me to come to pick her up in Malaysia. But from a practical, scientific point of view I know it has been quite a long time. Probably bad luck outweighs the good."

He said relatives of passengers should focus on the key issues: "Where is the plane? Where are our relatives? Who is helping to do the search?"

Wang said relatives would feel more confident if people gave them more details of what was happening, noting that it would be more useful to know what techniques were being used rather than simply how many ships and aircraft were involved. He said he was concerned that while experts were working on the investigation, "they are coming from their own professional perspective - like the blind men touching the elephant".

His son, Wang Le, said: "I hope [all the countries] can put their political interests behind them and make saving and searching the priority." He said his mother, who was returning from a business trip, is fond of dining out but also loves drinking coffee and reading novels.

He added: "She encouraged me to go to other places to work and to go out to travel and enjoy myself – not just stay in one place."

Relatives of the German victims of the 2009 Air France flight have written an open letter to the families, expressing their "sympathy and compassion in these days of utmost anxiety".

Their letter, posted on the Facebook page of a group set up by relatives following a US crash in 1994, added: "We are completely dismayed about the vague and partially contradicting information policy by the Malaysian government. As MH370 is an international flight and booked by passengers from various countries, you as families should feel entitled to approach your respective national governments to put pressure on the Malaysian military and civil authorities to speed up the investigations."