The Royal Malaysian Air Force has come under fire from both foreign and local critics over its response or lack thereof with regard to Flight MH370.

Bombarding the Air Force for not scrambling its fighter jets to intercept an unidentified flying object detected by military radar, a DAP MP said: “That is how we confirm whether the object is hostile or not."

"Not by waiting for people in the flying object to say - ‘hello general, we are evil people with evil intentions’

"At the time that whatever radar captured an intrusion into our space by an unidentified plane, why didn’t TUDM (Air Force) do anything? Where were our 18 Sukhois, our MIGs and all that?" asked Mohd Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz in his blog.

The former Umno politician, who is now the MP for Raub, lamented that in Malaysia’s case, the intrusion was taken lightly or worse, the nation’s fighter jets were not on standby around the clock.

Meanwhile, in a BBC report, a former British RAF pilot and aerospace analyst Andrew Brookes asked: "Where was the Malaysian Air Force in all this?"

It was previously reported that primary military radar tracked an unidentified contact that flew right across the country's air space, now confirmed to be MH370, but no action was taken.

"Ever since 9/11, air defences around the world have been on alert for a hijacked airliner aiming for a prestige target. And few targets are more prestigious than the Petronas towers in downtown Kuala Lumpur," added Brookes.

The former pilot pointed out that when the Boeing 777 turned back at the top of its scheduled climb without warning, Malaysian military should have noticed the red flag.

"When this bizarre saga is over, the Malaysian government and Air Force will have some serious matters to address, not least in the apparent gaps in wide area surveillance of their air space," he said.