PUTRAJAYA: Malaysians can start bidding for special registration vehicle numbers with the prefix and suffix M in conjunction with the country’s 66th National Day this year, says Transport Minister Anthony Loke.
He added that bidding for the special plates will be available at the Road Transport Department’s (JPJ) e-Bid portal from Thursday until Sept 4.
The special registration “M...M” that carries the M prefix in front and suffix at the back symbolises Malaysia Merdeka, he said.
“The current prefix M is for Melaka-registered vehicles.
“For this occasion, we added another M at the end of the number,” he told a press conference at his ministry here yesterday.
The minimum bid for “golden” numbers starts at RM20,000, followed by attractive numbers at RM3,000, popular numbers at RM800 and running numbers at RM300.
Loke said the successful bids needed to be registered to a vehicle within 12 months from the official announcement of the results of the biddings on Sept 5.
He added that the ministry managed to generate RM34mil from the sale of the special “FF” vehicle registration series to mark JPJ’s 77th anniversary last year.
On a separate matter, Loke said engineers managed to extract the last 30 minutes of voice recordings from the aircraft that crashed near Elmina, Shah Alam nearly two weeks ago.
He added that the voice data was extracted by a team of engineers from L3Harris, which is the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) in the United States.
“On Monday (US time), the engineers from L3Harris managed to retrieve and download the voice data from the recorder. All the voice recording data, especially the last 30 minutes before the incident happened, was successfully downloaded,” he added.
On Aug 24, the Transport Ministry’s Air Accident Investigation Bureau (BSKU) chief Brig Jen Tan Chee Kee led the team to the OEM laboratory in St Petersburg, Florida, to extract the audio recording from the crashed Beechcraft Model 390 (Premier 1).
Loke said the data has been transmitted to the BSKU team in Kuala Lumpur via secure email to be analysed. He also said the BSKU team is expected to leave the United States once the hurricane situation in Florida subsides.
“The team was supposed to return home once the data was extracted, but they were stranded due to the hurricane. However, the data has been safely transmitted, although we do not have the data physically for now.
“All the recordings of the two pilots as well as what happened in the cockpit will be analysed to identify what caused the crash,” he said.
Loke said the preliminary report on the plane crash near the Elmina township will be issued in the next two weeks, and the initial report was expected to be ready within 30 days of the incident that happened on Aug 17.
He declined to reveal the contents of the voice recording, adding that he was given a summary of its contents by the BSKU.
“Let our experts analyse the data and we will provide (the information) in the report,” he said.On Aug 17, a light business jet aircraft flying from Langkawi to the Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport in Subang crashed, killing six passengers and two crew members on board as well as a motorcyclist and a motorist on the ground.
Pelangai assemblyman and Pahang exco member Datuk Seri Johari Harun was among those who perished in the plane crash near the Elmina township in Selangor.
