Ex-NTSB official doubtful MH370 families will get raw data

The online version of the magazine on Friday said experienced aviation accident investigators are "doubtful" the request for authorities to release all raw data to outsiders for independent analysis would be successful.

Former member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), John Goglia, told the magazine that such a move by authorities would be "unprecedented" under the international procedures that govern major aviation accident cases.

"The families want more access, and that's understandable. But given that they don’t have the expertise, that could lead to a lot of posturing by outsiders (and misuse of the data)," Goglia was quoted as saying.

The air safety consultant with more than 30 years in the industry said the initial response by Malaysian authorities to the missing plane was "a mess".

"They didn't follow well-established international procedures from the very beginning, and it took weeks before they started to. And that got them off on the wrong foot."

The magazine said questions remained about a few aspects of the investigation, including background checks of all aboard, the examination of contacts among air traffic controllers, both civilian and military, in the countries that MH370 would have flown near or over.

Goglia said in a "normal investigation... everybody that had a role even remotely would have been interviewed about what they heard, what they knew, and all of that would have been vetted."

However, while insinuating that these were not done by the Malaysian authorities, the magazine did not explicitly state so.

However, Goglia said what was being done now in Canberra was "the proper way to do it".

Earlier this week, families demanded that the authorities release all raw data hoping that "with out-of-box thinking, the whole world can help to look for the plane".

More than 300 family members signed the letter which relayed the families’ apparent fears that the plane could be somewhere else, even far from the zone that has been the focus of a huge, multimillion-dollar search since late March.

In particular, they were asking for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) to get involved, since WHOI led the successful effort to locate Air France 447 at the bottom of the Atlantic three years ago.

Since MH370 disappeared on March 8, what happened to it remained as much a mystery today as it was two months ago, said the magazine.