Ong Ka Ting to coordinate MAS operation in Beijing

The Prime Minister’s Special Envoy to China, Tan Sri Ong Ka Ting has been assigned to help and coordinate all matters pertaining to the Malaysian Airlines (MAS) operations in Beijing.

MAS group executive chief officer, Ahmad Jauhari Yahya in a statement on Tuesday said, MAS will ensure that all basic necessity, comfort and mental support will be given to the families of passengers in the MH370 which went missing since Saturday.

“To the families of crew onboard of the MH370, we feel your anguish and concern. They are MAS family members and we are all affected with the incident,” he said.

He said MAS has special duties to care for the families of the passengers and added that Mercy Malaysia and Tzu Chi are also helping psychologically and with counselling.

Ahmad Jauhari said, Chinese government officials in Malaysia are also working closely with MAS and have placed their representative at the Emergency operation centre to help in times of emergency.

MAS also promised to remain transparent in the any matters concerning the missing Boeing 777-200 MH370.

Efforts to locate the MH370 which has been missing for more than 80 hours have been intensified on Tuesday with the search area expanded to cover 100 nautical miles more from the last point the aircraft was detected on Saturday morning.

MH370, a code share flight with China Southern Airlines, left KLIA for Beijing at 12:41am Saturday morning.

All communication with the plane was lost at 1:30am and no distress signal or call was received.

The flight had registered 239 passengers, 38 of them Malaysian. It was scheduled to arrive at Beijing International Airport at 6:30am, Saturday.