MH370 Malaysian authorities are leaving it to the international panel of experts that it had set up to determine if Malaysia had been slow to realise that Flight MH370 had gone missing in the early hours of March 8, and even slower to act on it.

Timeline made public yesterday indicated a 17-minute delay before the disappearance of the plane was first noticed by air traffic controllers in Vietnam and Malaysia, and a four-hour gap from that time before search and rescue operation was launched.

Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, in a press conference today, refused to comment when asked on the delay in the activation of the Air Rescue Coordination Centre.

Instead, he pointed out that France took much longer to initiate rescue procedures when Air France Flight 447 disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean back in 2009.

“It is not for us to discuss and decide here because I had informed that in the case of Air France Flight 447, it took them six to seven hours to respond.

“Therefore the benchmark for response time is different based on prevailing conditions. If we want to discuss this via the media, everyone have their opinion,” he said.

Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) director-general Azharuddin Abdul Rahman ( left) gave a similar response to a question why it had taken 17 minutes for Ho Chi Minh air traffic controllers (ATC) to inform their Kuala Lumpur counterparts that they had not been contacted by MH370.

When MH370 went missing, the aircraft was entering Vietnamese airspace and Kuala Lumpur ATC had handed over control of the aircraft to Ho Chi Minh and told MH370 to change its radio frequencies.

“If Ho Chi Minh City was not contacted by the aircraft, under the protocol it is five minutes. On why they had taken 17 minutes, let the independent panel mentioned by the minister earlier investigate.

“Not only Malaysia wants to know this, but also the entire civil aviation industry - why did it happen? What happened? And what should be done to ensure that it doesn’t happen again?” said Azharuddin.

Five meetings

The international investigation team is led by former DCA director-general and former permanent representative to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Council, Kok Soo Chon.

It includes representatives from the US, UK, China, France, Australia, Singapore and Indonesia. Japan has previously expressed interest in joining the panel as well.

Hishammuddin said that thus far, the investigation team has convened five meetings since it was formed about a week ago, and their progress will be reported “in due course”.

When asked why MAS Operations Centre had told air traffic controllers that MH370 was in Cambodia 25 minutes after it was reported missing, and that the aircraft could exchange signals, MAS chief executive officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya ( left ) said he was unsure what DCA meant when its timeline recorded that the plane could exchange signals.

He said was for as MAS is concerned, it had used flight tracking software to follow the flight.

“The flight following program that we have does a projection of the flight from the last known (location). It is not actually a primary identification of the airplane,” he said.

Meanwhile, Azharuddin assured that this aspect of the incident will also be investigated by the independent panel as well.