Black box crucial

PETALING JAYA: The black box of MH370 is crucial to the formation of a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) or a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) to investigate the plane's disappearance, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim, said today.
He told Parliament that the focus was on the black box as it would have the recording of the cockpit and the flight data.
"We will consider forming both the RCI and PSC only after the black box is found. Now, the effort is to look for the black box and debris," he said when replying to a question by Anthony Loke (DAP- Rasah) on what was happening to the suggestion that a RCI or PSC be formed.
Loke had questioned the likelihood of finding the black box since it took two years to find it in the Air France crash.
He said it was possible that the black box may never be found given bad conditions in the Indian Ocean.
"If the black box is not found, does this mean the PSC or RCI will not be formed? I hope the government will reconsider its decision," he said.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak had on Monday announced that the plane had crashed into the southern Indian Ocean, with no survivors.
Meanwhile, Thai satellite images have shown 300 floating objects in the southern Indian Ocean that may be debris from MH370.
AFP reported that the objects, ranging from two to 15 metres in size, were scattered over an area about 2,700km southwest of Perth, quoting the Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency.
"But we cannot – dare not – confirm they are debris from the plane," the agency's executive director, Anond Snidvongs, said.
He said the information had been given to Malaysia.
The pictures were taken by Thailand's only earth observation satellite on Monday but needed several days to process, Anond added.
He said the objects were spotted about 200km away from an area where French satellite images earlier showed potential objects in the search for the Boeing 777 which vanished on March 8 with 239 people aboard.
Thailand faced criticism after announcing more than a week after the jet's disappearance that its radar had picked up an "unknown aircraft" minutes after flight MH370 last transmitted its location.