06 March 2024 , 10:29
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A decade ago on March 8, a Malaysia Airlines flight vanished without a trace, and now new bombshell claims the passengers may have died "in a well-planned murder-suicide."
Investigators still do not know exactly what happened to the plane and its 239 passengers after the plane disappeared from air control radar 39 minutes after leaving Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing in 2014. A massive multinational search in the southern Indian Ocean, where the jet is believed to have crashed, found nothing. Apart from some small fragments that later washed ashore, no bodies or wreckage have ever been found.
The plane carried 227 passengers, including five young children and 12 crew members. Most of those aboard were from China, but there were also people from other countries, including the United States, Indonesia, France and Russia. A new documentary, Why Planes Vanish: The Hunt For MH370, examines the theory that Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53 — who worked for the airline for some 30 years — was behind a planned murder-suicide.
Zaharie sent a last radio call to Kuala Lumpur before leaving Malaysia, chillingly saying "Good Night Malaysian Three Seven Zero", but failed to check in with Ho Chi Minh City air traffic controllers when the plane crossed into Vietnam’s airspace. In the official Malaysian report on the crash, Zaharie was described as "a leading pilot" with "flawless safety records." The report said: "There were no behavioural signs of social isolation, change in habits or interest, self-neglect, involvement in drug or alcohol abuse."
A family member of passengers and crew on board missing Malaysian Airlines flight (NAZRI MOHAMAD/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)But the report neglected to reveal that, according to other reports, his marriage was in trouble, and he was living in the second of the family’s houses. Some accounts described him as listless and detached. He spent a lot of time alone, others said.
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Minutes after the "Goodbye" message, the plane’s transponder, a communication system that transmits the plane’s location to air traffic control, shut down. Military radar later showed the plane took a sharp left turn — so sharp that investigators struggled to recreate it in a flight simulator. The plane then travelled over the Andaman Sea before it vanished and satellite data showed it continued to fly for hours.
Jean Luc Marchand, former manager of air traffic research at Eurocontrol, and ex-pilot Patrick Lelly have been researching the plane’s disappearance using simulators. They believe only a very experienced pilot could have performed the “challenging manoeuvre”. Lelly believes the pilot would have had to depressurise the cabin to prevent the crew from raising the alarm. While Marchand said: “I am convinced this was executed by an experienced pilot.”
Malaysia's government has consistently said it will only resume the hunt if there is credible new evidence. It is now considering an Ocean Infinity proposal for a fresh search with new technology, although it is unclear if the company has new evidence of the plane's location. Many families who lost people in the disappearance remain steadfast in their quest for answers. They argue the mystery must be resolved, not just for personal closure but also to prevent future disasters.
The disaster has also helped to bolster aviation safety. Starting in 2025, the International Civil Aviation Organization will mandate that jets carry a device that will broadcast their position every minute if they encounter trouble, to allow authorities to locate the plane if a disaster occurs. The devices will be triggered automatically and can't be manually turned off. But the rule applies only to new jets — not the thousands of older planes still in service.