Communicator said
Despite this clear track record (pardon the pun), the Malaysian PM’s remarks are still crafted around the concept that “we [Malaysia] had no reason to suspect that the aircraft that we tracked flying across our peninsula was MH370”.
Initial remarks are "last contact 2:40" while last primary radar contact just happens to be... 2:40
Yeah, obviously someone connected the flight path instantly but someone else apparently didn't like them saying it and the "official" position was blurred/changed/danced around for a while before being changed back a full week later after it was "corroborated" by the satellite (the roughly dozen or so eye witness accounts from between 1:30-1:45 that night saying the plane went back over them heading West apparently wasn't good enough corroboration- they needed to wait for actual satellite data to know what they knew all along)
This is specifically what was reported in the news cycles on March 8th:
According to a press statement by Malaysia Airline Systems Bhd, Subang Air Traffic Control reported that it lost contact with Flight MH370 at 2.40 am on Saturday.
then we have March 9th:
"We are trying to make sense of this," the Malaysian air force chief told a media conference. "The military radar indicated that the aircraft may have made a turn back and in some parts, this was corroborated by civilian radar."
March 10th
Berita Harian quotes Air Force chief General Tan Sri Rodzali Daud as saying the plane was last detected by military radar at in the vicinity of Pulau Perak, in the Straits of Malacca, at 2.40 a.m. on Saturday, hundreds of kilometres off course.
An AP reporter was also standing right there, hears it, and supposedly verifies the statement with multiple (unnamed) Malaysian Officials
March 11th
"I wish to state that I did not make any such statements as above. What occurred was that the Berita Harian journalist asked me if such an incident occurred as detailed in their story. However, I did not give any answer to the question.
"Instead, what I said to the journalist was, 'Please refer to the statement which I made on 9 March 2014, during the press conference with the Chief of Defence Forces at the Sama-Sama Hotel, Kuala Lumpur International Airport'," the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) chief said in a statement late last night.
His March 9th press conference statement, of course, being that there was corroborated evidence it had turned back.
So yeah, it isn't like this very issue (as well as their issue coming to grips with this issue) hasn't been pretty clear since day 1 - but still, as you say, they work under the concept that
“we [Malaysia] had no reason to suspect that the aircraft that we tracked flying across our peninsula was MH370” because... why exactly?
Does the Left hand not know what the Right is doing? Do they just desperately want to ignore anything they don't want to know? (many people here show that quality, so that is kind of understandable I guess...) Do they think they can will the plane into a body of water they want it to be in? Maybe get the Shaman to use his magic and make it be true?
...no matter, all those countries wasting all that time in a Gulf of Thailand that officials pretty much knew the entire time that the plane didn't crash into - and many here selectively believing very few things the Malaysian Officials tell us while ignoring absolutely everything else they and other Governments say
Reality is, the plane turned around and they knew it instantly