Malaysia will release the initial report on the missing flight MH370, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.
“I have directed an internal investigation team of experts to look at the report, and there is a likelihood that next week, we could release the report,” Razak told CNN in an interview aired late Thursday.
The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 with 239 people aboard disappeared on March 8th while heading to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur and is now believed to have crashed in the India Ocean, where an effort led by Australia is ongoing to recover its flight data and cockpit voice recorders.
Current Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuding Hussein vowed earlier this month that any data recovered from the plane’s black box will be released publicly.
In his interview with CNN, Najib also stressed that the Malaysian government still is not prepared to declare the passenger on board flight MH370 to be dead.
“At some point in time I would be, but right now I think I need to take into account the feelings of the next of kin – and some of them have said publicly that they aren’t willing to accept it until they find hard evidence,” Najib said.
But he added it was “hard to imagine otherwise”.
Families of the passengers have recently condemned the Malaysian government’s proposition of it looking into issuing death certificates for those on board although there was no proof of what happened to the plane yet.