A total of 239 passengers – most of them Chinese – were on board.
THE scheduled release follows calls from the families of the 239 passengers for the information to be made public, so it can be verified by independent experts. Malaysian transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein announced the data’s publication while on a visit to a new international airport near Kuala Lumpur.
The aircraft has not been seen since it set off from the Malaysian capital for Beijing, China, on March 8. Authorities believe the plane was deliberately diverted from its flight path and is thought to have crashed into the Indian Ocean off Australia’s west coast.
Among the data, which includes signals known as “handshakes” between the aircraft and a satellite operated by Inmarsat, is the last transmission received from the aircraft terminal, at 00:19 Malaysian time.
Earlier this month, Malaysia Airlines revealed its biggest quarterly loss in more than two years, £82.3m, in the wake of criticism over the flight’s mysterious disappearance. There has been no confirmed sighting of either the plane or debris, despite a major search operation involving several countries. Family members have been critical of the Malaysian government’s handling of the incident and have asked independent experts to analyse the data.
-Sky News