Malaysia releases MH370 report

Malaysia has released a much-anticipated report on Flight MH370, chronicling its slow-footed response to the airliner's disappearance, but which contains no new clues on what happened to the missing plane.

The brief five-page report dated April 9, which was submitted earlier to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), was mostly a recap of information that had already been released over time.

The document and accompanying materials contained no major revelations in what remains one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history.

"Over a month after the aircraft departed Kuala Lumpur International Airport, its location is still unknown," said the report, which was emailed to news organisations.

But the information indicated it took authorities four hours from the time the Malaysia Airlines jet was first noticed missing at around 1.38am on March 8 to initiate an official emergency response.

The air force, meanwhile, took eight hours to formally notify civilian authorities that it had tracked a plane believed to be MH370 moving back across Malaysian airspace and out toward the Indian Ocean.

The jet vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people aboard.

It is believed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean, but a massive search for wreckage has found nothing.

The information release included a summary of exchanges between the national airline and confused Malaysian, Vietnamese and Cambodian air-traffic controllers as they sought to determine what happened to the plane after it disappeared from primary radar over the South China Sea at 1.21am.

The main report is required by the ICAO within 30 days of a crash and Malaysian authorities have confirmed it was submitted on time.

However, they waited another three weeks before releasing the brief document, with Prime Minister Najib Razak saying last week he wanted it to be reviewed first by an "internal" team of experts.

Malaysia's long-ruling government, which has a poor record on transparency, was heavily criticised for a seemingly chaotic response and contradictory statements on MH370 in the early days of the crisis.

It has been tight-lipped about the progress of its ongoing investigations, but is continuing to investigate what happened to MH370.

Some relatives of passengers have angrily accused the government and airline of incompetence and withholding incriminating information, charges that are denied.