Trilateral meeting to be held over MH370

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysian acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said here Friday that he would head to Canberra on Sunday to attend a trilateral meeting with China and Australia on issues related to the missing MH370 flight.

He said the meeting would be focused on deployment of assets, engagement with the families and the experts' and technical advice.

Hishammuddin said he was confident they were on the right track despite the huge challenge ahead. He believed they would find the plane sooner or later.

Angus Houston, chief of the Australian Joint Agency Coordination Center (JACC), who just concluded a meeting with Hishammuddin, said they discussed about the challenges involved in deep water search which could take eight to 12 months to complete.

Houston said he was confident that with the effective search, they would eventually find the aircraft.

Jean-Paul Troadec, president of the French Aviation Accident Investigation Bureau, who had led the Air France 447 investigation team, said the search was a big challenge, but by deploying right assets and taking necessary time, there was hope to find the wreckage.

Malaysia released Thursday a preliminary report on missing Flight MH370, recommending that the UN body overseeing global aviation consider introducing a system for tracking commercial aircraft in real time.

The five-page report indicated that it took authorities four hours from the time the Malaysia Airlines jet was first noticed missing at around 1:38 am on March 8 to initiate an official emergency response.

It also confirmed that military radar tracked a plane as it turned in a westerly direction across the Malaysian Peninsula on the morning of March 8 but took no further action.

Recordings of conversations between the cockpit of MH370 and Kuala Lumpur air traffic control and maps showing MH370's possible flight path were also released to the public for the first time.