‘IN EMOTIONAL FAREWELL, CAPT ZAHARIE TOOK A LAST GLIMPSE AT HIS BELOVED PENANG BEFORE FLYING MH370 INTO ITS FINAL DESTINATION WITH DOOM’ – REPORT

THE pilot of the ill-fated Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 intentionally steered the aircraft over his hometown of Penang, possibly as an “emotional farewell”, minutes before the plane disappeared, an aviation expert told The Australiannewspaper.

Evidence of MH370’s final minutes before it lost contact with air traffic control solidifies the aviation community’s belief that Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah hijacked his own plane, said veteran commercial and air force pilot Mike Keane.

Last month, Malaysia revealed a largely technical 1,500-page report, concluding that the international investigating team was unable to determine the real cause of the aircraft’s disappearance.

However, Keane said, Malaysian and Australian air crash investigators failed to provide justice to the victims and their families by shying away from concluding that Zaharie played a clear role in the plane’s disappearance.

“The one factor that has not been adequately addressed in the main report of 450 pages and another 1,000 pages of appendices is pilot involvement,”   he told The Australian.

“I hold the opinion that this was not an accident, but the deliberate destruction of the aircraft, resulting in the deaths of 238 innocent victims.”

Shortly after MH370 departed Kuala Lumpur past midnight on March 8, 2014, the aircraft disappeared from air traffic control radars, but a review of military primary radar showed that Zaharie had manually piloted the plane to make a sharp 180° left turn.

Keane said after making the turn, the aircraft took up a southwesterly track to a point 10 nautical miles south of Penang island, which was “significant” as it provided the Penang-born Zaharie with a good view from the left seat of the aircraft.

“This could be interpreted as a last, emotional farewell.”

After the Penang overfly, MH370 progressed to the north of Sumatra, before turning south, heading towards the Indian Ocean.

Keane said in the absence of any other likely cause for MH370’s disappearance, investigators should have paid more attention to Zaharie’s possible involvement, adding that his political involvements should have also been investigated.

“From a pilot’s point of view, MH370’s deviation from its planned route shows that the person flying the aircraft had meticulously planned, and executed, a hijacking.”

Other aviation experts have told The Australian that factors, such as the lack of a distress call and the deliberate flying of the aircraft for at least two hours before it disappeared from radar screens, pointed to hijacking by the pilot.

The MH370 investigation report was released in Putrajaya to the victims’ kin and members of the media.

Two undersea searches – the first led by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, and the second by Houston-based seabed survey company Ocean Infinity – have failed to find the aircraft.

THE MALAYSIAN INSIGHT