The pilot who flew missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which is believed to have gone off route and crashed in the Indian Ocean, conducted a simulation of a similar path just weeks prior, New York magazine reported.
Zaharie Ahmad Shah, the airman at the helm of the plane, used an elaborate home-built flight simulator to steer himself over the Strait of Malacca and into the remote southern Indian Ocean, a course with striking resemblance to the route MH370 is believed to have taken.
The finding, which casts a shadow of suspicion over the 53-year-old pilot, was published on Friday by New York magazine, which said it obtained a confidential document from Malaysian police investigating the incident.
Photo: EPA
According to the document, the FBI recovered deleted data points from the flight simulator on Zaharie’s hard drive.
“We found a flight path that lead to the Southern Indian Ocean among the numerous other flight paths charted on the flight simulator that could be of interest,” the document said, according to the magazine.
Although the paths are similar, the simulated flight’s endpoint is about 1,450km from the area where the plane is believed to have gone down.
The Boeing 777 vanished for unknown reasons on March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people onboard, mostly Chinese nationals. It remains one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history.
The Malaysian government continues to maintain that it does not know what caused the incident.
At the time Zaharie, an opposition supporter, came under scrutiny amid unsubstantiated reports that he was upset over a jail sentence handed to Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim hours before the plane took off or was suicidal due to personal problems.
His family and friends strongly reject such claims as baseless.
News of the simulated flight came the same day that Malaysia, Australia and China, the three nations leading the search, said that hope of finding the flight’s final resting place is “fading” and that the massive hunt will be suspended if nothing turns up in the suspected crash zone.
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
OBJECTS AT SEA: Satellites with synthetic-aperture radar could aid in the detection of small Chinese boats attempting to illegally enter Taiwan, the space agency head said Taiwan aims to send the nation’s first low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite into space in 2027, while the first Formosat-8 and Formosat-9 spacecraft are to be launched in October and 2028 respectively, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council laid out its space development plan in a report reviewed by members of the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee. Six LEO satellites would be produced in the initial phase, with the first one, the B5G-1A, scheduled to be launched in 2027, the council said in the report. Regarding the second satellite, the B5G-1B, the government plans to work with private contractors
MISSION: The Indo-Pacific region is ‘the priority theater,’ where the task of deterrence extends across the entire region, including Taiwan, the US Pacific Fleet commander said The US Navy’s “mission of deterrence” in the Indo-Pacific theater applies to Taiwan, Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Stephen Koehler told the South China Sea Conference on Tuesday. The conference, organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), is an international platform for senior officials and experts from countries with security interests in the region. “The Pacific Fleet’s mission is to deter aggression across the Western Pacific, together with our allies and partners, and to prevail in combat if necessary, Koehler said in the event’s keynote speech. “That mission of deterrence applies regionwide — including the South China Sea and Taiwan,” he
‘NARWHAL’: The indigenous submarine completed its harbor acceptance test recently and is now under heavy guard as it undergoes tests in open waters, a source said The Hai Kun (海鯤), the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, yesterday began sea trials, sailing out of the Port of Kaohsiung, a military source said. Also known as the “Narwhal,” the vessel departed from CSBC Corp, Taiwan’s (台灣國際造船) shipyard at about 8am, where it had been docked. More than 10 technicians and military personnel were on deck, with several others standing atop the sail. After recently completing its harbor acceptance test, the vessel has started a series of sea-based trials, including tests of its propulsion and navigational systems, while partially surfaced, the source said. The Hai Kun underwent tests in the port from
RSS