The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) has asked Malaysian authorities to provide information about the missing plane, MH370, after Malaysia placed blame on Vietnam.

 Malaysia Airlines' plane

Pham Quy Tieu, Deputy Minister of Transport, confirmed that the Vietnamese side has sent an official document to Malaysian authorities on May 5. A copy was also sent to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Asia-Pacific Office.

He said that the document was issued following domestic and foreign news which cited director of the Malaysia's Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) saying that Vietnamese Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) breached protocol by taking 17 minutes instead of five to let Malaysian controllers know that it had lost contact with MH370.

DCA also claimed that the plane had passed through the navigational way-point called "Igari" and had entered Vietnamese airspace, making ATC responsible for monitoring the aircraft.

“In fact, there is no evidence that the aircraft had passed through the “Igari” way-point and entered our country’s airspace,” said Lai Xuan Thanh, Director of CAAV.

“I’m sure that the plane went missing before reaching the point and the crew had yet to contact ATC. So, the transfer had yet to be completed. The Vietnamese side had yet to take over responsibility for monitoring and directing the plane," Thanh commented.

The signal from MH370 was lost on the HCM City-based Air Control Centre (ACC)’s radar system before the IGARI point at 17:20 UTC time, around one minute before the planned time for control transfer. The Malaysian system also confirmed the last signal of the plane on their radar before 17:22 UTC time, when the aircraft was in Singaporean airspace.

Under ICAO regulations, if a plane goes missing near airspace border areas, the responsibility would fall on the country that had the last contact with the plane. In this case, the responsibility to initiate the alarm system and search and rescue services would fall on the Malaysian side.

Vietnamese civil aviation authorities said that, the Vietnamese side took all required actions immediately after being alerted of the problem by Malaysian authorities, as well as coordinated with other countries in the search effort.