LONDON – Malaysia Airlines has reaffirmed that their safety is in an excellent state after a new report has come out by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) on the incident involving Malaysia Airlines flight MH134 from Brisbane to Kuala Lumpur on July 18, 2018.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH134 departed Brisbane Airport with no airspeed indication, which is crucial information for both the pilot and the autopilot, who can safely determine if the plane isn’t flying either too fast or too slow, and at an optimum speed for optimal fuel consumption.

The pitot tube (which is a vital instrument for measuring the airspeed) is normally temporarily blocked to prevent a wasp nest from being built in there, which is a common problem in Brisbane.

However, due to miscommunication, the one person responsible for the removal of this vital object did not remove it and therefore caused the airspeed readings to become unreadable.

Malaysia Airlines had worked very closely with the ATSB, and worked parallel on their own, to find out what exactly went wrong.

“All safety recommendations from this investigation have been addressed internally and externally, including [by] our third-party service providers, namely the ground and technical handlers at Brisbane.

“Subsequently the airline had undergone two regulatory and three International Air Transport Association (IATA) operational safety audits in 2019, 2021, and 2022 as part of our safety assurance program.

“Malaysia Airlines again would like to strongly stress that safety is of utmost importance at all times,” the company said.

The ATSB said that they have finished “one of their most substantiative and complex” investigations in recent years involving a Malaysia Airlines Airbus A330 starting almost 4 years ago.