Malaysia calls for stronger cooperation to improve flight safety

Malaysia has called for stronger cooperation among nations including information sharing to improve flight safety.

Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said Malaysia believed that there is a need for a system where airlines have the ability to share information pertaining to flight risk and for countries to provide more information gathered by their intelligence agencies.

He noted improvements should also be made pertaining to the avenues in which national aviation authorities disseminate their information.

"The words and promises given must be converted into action that will lead to a prevention of tragedies.

"It must be iterated that the sharing of information is a way to save lives," he said in a statement here, on Friday.

Liow stressed that following the MH17 tragedy, all parties must look beyond national interest and prioritise collective security.

"We must stand by our commitment to assist each other in sharing flight risk information, as we strive to honour the lives that were lost on board MH17 and make our skies safe for the citizens of the world," he said.

While Malaysia and the whole world were still recovering from the loss of its citizens in the MH17 tragedy, Liow added that Kuala Lumpur would continue to pursue every avenue to bring those who are responsible for heinous crime to justice.

Besides, he said, the government looked forwards to the outcome of deliberations undertaken by the joint task force on tracking, set up by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) as well as the Conflict Zones task force set up by ICAO.

"Governments are keen to review the recommendations from these two task forces in light of the MH17 and MH370 tragedies," Liow said.

Flight MH17 went down as it was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur with 283 passengers and 15 crew on board. The Boeing 777-200 aircraft was shot down over troubled Ukraine.

So far, the remains of 36 Malaysian victims had been brought home in stages since Aug 22.

Flight MH370, which was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members left the KL International Airport at 12.41am on March 8, and disappeared from radar 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 in the South China Sea and Andaman Sea before Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced on March 24 that Flight MH370 "ended in the southern Indian Ocean". The search for the aircraft is ongoing.