Malaysian authorities "struggling with challenges": Inmarsat official

The Malaysian authorities have struggled with an awful lot of information and challenges, as their capability of handling such a complex investigation was limited, an official from Inmarsat told Xinhua on Tuesday.

New analysis of satellite data suggested that the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 "ended" in the southern Indian Ocean, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak declared at a hastily-convened press conference Monday evening.

Talking about the "rash" conclusion, Chris Mclaughlin, senior vice president of Inmarsat, told Xinhua: "I think they have struggled with an awful lot of information and awful lot of challenges. They don't have the powerful navy and airforce that China has. They don't have the power of processing and the rich that the America has. It is struggling with something so complex."

He continued: "I think they have made an honest attempt to try to run a very complex investigation, but I think people will draw their own conclusions."

According to Mclaughlin, Inmarsat refined their research by looking at network and comparing it with previous Malaysian 777 flights. Then they concluded that the pings across the network which were only passive messages were most likely to fit the southern rout only.

"Our engineers also invited engineers from another space company to peer review the information. Then they passed it to the Air Accident Investigation Branch for their consideration. Only after both of those parties had affirmed our technique did we step forward and offer it to the Malaysian investigation."

"But we were only able to conclude that at the weekend and we shared that with Malaysians. They moved quickly to make the statement," Mclaughlin said.

The search has lasted for 17 days, but nothing has been found.

"If one thing has to come from this dreadful occurrence, it should be driving a requirement for legislation, that data should compulsory be passed from all commercial jets every 15 minutes. Then we would have more than just supposition on where it is," said Mclaughlin.