It is part of mounting concerns about the way in which Malaysian authorities have handled the search for the missing aircraft as it enters its third week.
Strategic Aviation Solutions chairman Neil Hansford said it also suggests Malaysian authorities are not being fully transparent about what the Boeing 777-200ER, which disappeared on March 8 an hour into a journey from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, was carrying.
“To me, there is no reason why they wouldn’t declare the cargo manifest unless you’ve got something to hide,” he said.
“There is no reason you wouldn’t have given it to AMSA (the Australian Maritime Safety Authority) on the first day of the search.”
AMSA has requested a cargo manifest for Flight M370 from Malaysia Airlines.
The manifest is expected to give the search operation a better idea in identifying objects they spot in the Indian Ocean if they indeed came from the missing plane.
However, the Malaysian authorities to date have refused to release it, insisting the document is with the police who are conducting their own investigation into the cause of the plane’s disappearance.
“There is certainly no reason why they shouldn’t share a cargo manifest with a legitimate search agency because it will only contribute to the search effort,” Professor Jason Middleton, the head of the school of aviation at the University of New South Wales, said.
“I would have viewed that (not sharing the information) as unusual.”
Professor Middleton said the only reason he could think of for not sharing the information was that something of “Malaysian national interest” was being carried on the aircraft.
“But in that case you could just redact that bit,” he said.
He said the whole investigation had been “totally characterised by innuendo and false data”.
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