MH370: These two days are critical - Hishammuddin

Today and tomorrow are critical in the search for Malaysia Airlines MH370.

Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein said it is because all the efforts have been focused on the areas identified by Joint Agency Coordination Center (JACC).

“Based on my discussion with JACC and Angus Houston, the narrowing of the search for today and tomorrow is at a very critical juncture,” he said at a press briefing today.

“Whatever the outcome of the next few days, we need to regroup and reconsider the operations. But it doesn’t mean we are going to stop the operations.”

He added that authorities are ready to relook at data from satellite, Inmarsat, radar, ping locator and other information provided by the 26 countries involved in the SAR.

Hishammuddin also denied media reports that the deep-sea Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Bluefin-21 will take between six to eight weeks to complete the search at the identified areas.

“This is incorrect. The immediate search area that the Bluefin–21 is now scouring should be completed within the next week," he said.

Flight MH370 with 239 people aboard disappeared enroute to Beijing about an hour after takeoff from Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 8, 2014.

A multinational search was mounted for the aircraft, first in the South China Sea and then in the Straits of Malacca and Andaman Sea, and now in the southern Indian Ocean.

Analysis of satellite data indicated that the plane flew along what is called the 'southern corridor' and that its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean..

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced on March 24, seventeen days after the disappearance of the aircraft, that Flight MH370 "ended in the southern Indian Ocean".