Information sharing vital

The world will not get to know exactly what has happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 and the passengers and crew on board until the airline and the Malaysian authorities share all the information they have with the rest of the world in a candid manner.

It is already nine days since the flight disappeared in the early morning of March 8. As many as 25 countries have participated in the efforts to search for any signs of the plane. But the contradictory and piecemeal information Malaysia Airlines and its government have provided has made search efforts difficult and the entire incident even more mysterious.

There is a lot of pressure on Malaysian Airlines and the Malaysian government from both the families of those on board the flight and the international community, and it is possible they did not know then as much as they do now about the change in the plane's course and possibility it might have been hijacked.

It will take a lot of time and effort to check the related records and probe the backgrounds of all those on board, the pilots in particular, and it may never be known what might have happened on board the flight when it suddenly changed course.

But we do know that the flight switched off its automated communication system before it turned away from its intended course and flew for hours before it disappeared.

What else is known that has not been shared with the world?

There is no reason for the airline company and the Malaysian government to hold anything back from the international community, and they have the responsibility to conduct as thorough an investigation as possible about the incident and tell the truth about it.

They must share all the information they have so this mystery can be unraveled. Comparing notes and sharing information frankly may enable those searching for the plane to focus on a smaller area.

It may take a long time to get the complete picture of what has happened, indeed it is possible we may never know. But it is of the utmost importance that any loopholes that might have been exploited by hijackers or terrorists be identified as soon as possible because we need countermeasures to plug them.