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 Lawyers acting for some of the families of those on board said
earlier that the fact the battery had not been replaced - revealed
in a weekend report on the anniversary of MH370's disappearance -
could be key in any legal action against the airline.
MH370 vanished shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur, bound for
Beijing, early on March 8 last year, becoming one of the greatest
mysteries in aviation history.
A 584-page interim report into the disappearance of the Boeing
777-200ER <BA.N>, released on Sunday, said the beacon battery for
the flight data recorder had expired in December 2012 and was not
replaced. The beacon is designed to send a signal if a crash occurs
in water.
Malaysia Airlines (MAS) said in a statement on Monday that a similar
beacon was also installed with the solid state cockpit voice
recorder (SSCVR) and its battery life was still good.
"The SSCVR battery would have been transmitting for 30 days upon
activation when immersed in water," MAS said.
Malaysia's transport ministry said in a statement it was reviewing
the interim report and pledged to take "stern action", without
giving further details.
 "In no manner does the data point to how or why MH370 went missing,"
the statement added.
U.S. law firm Kreindler & Kreindler LP, which is representing around
20 families, had said the expired battery was "potentially very
significant" in determining compensation if it had hurt the search
for the missing plane.
The oversight was blamed on a failure to properly update a computer
system in the engineering department of Malaysia Airlines
<MLYAF.PK>, Malaysia's Department of Civil Aviation said in Sunday's
report.
DECLARED MISSING
"This airline, which allowed its crew and plane to fly with expired
batteries on critical equipment, continues to reject offering any
kind of meaningful settlement to the families without them first
proving the losses they suffered, without any actual evidence of a
crash," Kreindler & Kreindler LP aviation attorney Justin Green said
in an email to Reuters.
"The airline ... even more clearly now may be responsible for the
unsuccessful search for this plane."
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In January, Malaysia Airlines officially declared the disappearance
of MH370 an accident, clearing the way for the airline to pay
compensation to victims' relatives while the search for the plane
goes on.
Investigators believe the plane, carrying 227 passengers and 12
crew, was flown thousands of miles off course before eventually
crashing into the ocean off Australia.
The search along a rugged 60,000 sq km patch of sea floor some 1,600
km (1,000 miles) west of the Australian city of Perth has found
nothing so far.
The search in this area, which experts believe is the plane's most
likely resting place, could be wound up in May after Australia's
deputy prime minister said last week discussions were under way
between Australia, China and Malaysia on whether to call it off
soon.
However, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and the Chinese
government said they remained committed to the search. Most of the
passengers were from China.
The interim report offered no definitive cause for the plane's
disappearance, adding there was nothing suspicious in the financial,
medical or personal histories of the pilots or crew.
"The disappearance of MH370 is without precedent, and so too is the
search - by far the most complex and technically challenging in
aviation history," Najib said in a statement.
(Additional reporting by Al-Zaquan Amer Hamzah; Editing by Dean
Yates and Alex Richardson)
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