D.S You may choose to build a damning case against the Malaysians because of that possible singular contradiction but I'm not prepared to form an opinion simply by relying on media hearsay. I'd say you might be showing some confirmation bias.
There is no doubt they are not as polished as western spokespeople who not only are speaking in their own tongue but are also highly trained in media communication and issues management. They may even have made some mistakes, they are human like everyone else.
But taking the helicoptor view, ignoring the speculation of vain experts-for-rent and journalists tasked with selling advertising space in an information vacuum, what I see is an evolution of the search area as increasing amounts of information has become available and verified. There is no doubt lessons can be learned from this but casting the Malaysians as conspiratorial, face-saving incompetents is not only lazy and aggressive, it is one way not to learn lessons.