Govt Will Ensure MAS Compensates Flight MH370 Next-Of-Kin - Transport Minister

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 31 (Bernama) -- The government will monitor, and ensure that Malaysia Airlines (MAS) compensates the next-of-kin of passengers and crew members who were on board its ill-fated Flight MH370, said Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai. He said the matter had been agreed upon by the Chinese Government to ensure that all welfare, problems, and requests of the next-of-kin are met following the declaration by the government that the disappearance Flight MH370 was an accident, and that all the passengers and crew members were presumed to be dead. "We will ensure that MAS will be responsible to contact the next-of-kin and discuss how best to address their needs," he told reporters after opening the Strengthening the Teaching and Learning of the Chinese Language Seminar at Wisma MCA here Friday. Liow said the MH370 Next-of-Kin Committee would also help monitor developments on the welfare initiative. "The committee has also created a website for the convenience of obtaining the latest information and submitting any questions relating to the developments on the MH370 search mission," he said. Liow stressed that the government had a comprehensive collaboration plan with China and Australia to continue the search mission for the unfortunate flight in the Indian Ocean without any set time frame or cost. He said as of now, four ships including the Fugro Supporter had finished searching 16,000sq km of the 60,000sq km planned to be searched in the ocean. When asked regarding the declaration by the Malaysian Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) that the incident relating to the flight was an accident, Liow said that the announcement made Thursday was based on a convention set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). "The announcement does not mean that the search operation has been terminated," he said. The Boeing 777 aircraft carrying 12 crew members and 227 passengers had disappeared from radars on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, around an hour after it had left the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) at 12.41am on March 8, 2014. Some 350 teachers and lecturers from teacher education institutions in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Negeri Sembilan and Melaka are attending the two-day seminar. -- BERNAMA