Trilateral meeting on MH370 in Canberra on Sunday

Kuala Lumpur, May 2 (IANS) Malaysia, China and Australia will held a trilateral meeting in Canberra on Sunday on issues related to the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, a senior minister has said.

"We hope to discuss the approach forward with regards to deployment of assets and engagement with families. The expert and technical advice that comes from all over the world will be looked at," The Malaysian Star quoted acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein as saying.

Meanwhile, Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) chief Angus Houston said Friday that a new phase of underwater search could take up to 12 months.

"But we're totally committed as three nations (Malaysia, Australia and France) to find MH370. And I'm confident that with an effective search, we will eventually find the aircraft," Houston said.

Malaysia Thursday recommended the introduction of a standard for real time tracking of commercial airliners even as the families of passengers on board MH370 were advised to receive information about the aircraft at their homes.

A transportation ministry report on the probe into the aircraft's disappearance also revealed that ATC controllers failed to notice for 17 minutes that the plane had gone off the radar and did not activate a rescue operation for four hours.

The report also said all of the airline's Family Assistance Centres around the world would be closed by May 7, 2014, and Malaysia Airlines would keep in close touch with the families on the news updates through various ways.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished mysteriously about an hour after taking off for Beijing from Kuala Lumpur shortly after midnight March 8.

The Boeing 777-200ER was scheduled to land in Beijing the same morning. The 227 passengers on board included five Indians, 154 Chinese and 38 Malaysians.