Major Zaidi Ahmad said international naval assets would not have scoured the South China Sea in vain if Malaysian authorities had not withheld important radar data.
The recently released MH370 Government Safety Report shows the authorities knew the plane had flown past Penang and was headed towards the Indian Ocean, but did not inform rescue teams early enough.
Zaidi called for the appointment of a royal commission to inquire into the matter so that officials of the previous government could be questioned.
“Logically, before any search is carried out, the investigators would look at radar images to see the last seen location of the plane and that is where the search will commence,” he told FMT.
“But the world was not told about our military radars, which saw the plane cross Penang and head towards an islet close to Langkawi.”
Former prime minister Najib Razak declared on March 15, 2014, that the South China Sea search had come to a close.
“That was seven days after the plane had gone missing,” Zaidi noted. “If the information had been given earlier on, we could have got to the plane.”
When MH370 disappeared, rescue teams were scrambled to the South China Sea as civilian radars showed that it was northeast of Kota Bharu before contact was lost at 1.21am.
According to Zaidi, safety reports show the military radars spotted the plane flying about 10 nautical miles south of Penang at 1.52am.
The radars also spotted the plane at Pulau Perak, a small island southwest of Langkawi. The reports show that it was flying at the dangerously low level of 1,463 metres.
The military radars last saw the plane at 2.22am as it went past the Mekar waypoint, east of Banda Aceh.
“We must hold the former government leaders and the former PM accountable for the failure of the search in the first instance,” Zaidi said.
“Only an RCI can determine whether the government purposely hid the military radar information at the instruction of foreign powers.”
Flight 370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people aboard. It is one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries.
Malaysia called off the search last May.