[JonDuke]

Press Statement from earlier this morning:

Opening statement

• Maldives authorities confirm report of the aircraft sighted is not true.
• Appealed to other countries to volunteer more satellite and radar data about the flight.
• Aircraft flew on normal routing until IGARI way point.
• All passengers, crew and ground staff handling the aircraft are being investigated.
• All passenger's background checks have been recieved from all countries apart from Ukraine and Russia.
• Some data had been deleted from the pilot's flight simulator and forensic work to retrieve this data is on-going.
• Passengers, the pilots and the crew remain innocent until proven otherwise.
• A high-level team fom Malaysia will immediately travel to Beijing to give briefings & updates to the next of kin on the latest situation, and on search and rescue plans.

Q&A

• DCA Chief dismissed a report that the plane was programmed to change course before the co-pilot issued the “all right, goodnight” sign off.
• One of the main priorities is how to manage emotions and how to appease the families
• Hisshammudin played down a report by Reuters which claimed investigators had a “working assumption” that the plane is likely to be lost far into the southern flight corridor in the southern Indian ocean.
• Both corridors are both equally important. But the southern corridor is much more challenging.
• Pilot's flight simulator data was cleared on the 3 February