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Malaysia suspected MH370 downed in murder-suicide: Aussie ex-PM
SYDNEY, Feb 19, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Former Australian prime minister Tony
Abbott has claimed “very top” level Malaysian officials believed vanished
Flight MH370 was deliberated downed by the captain in a mass murder-suicide.
The Malaysia Airlines jet vanished on March 8, 2014 carrying 239 people —
mostly from China — en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
No sign of the plane was found in a 120,000-square kilometre (46,000-square
mile) Indian Ocean search zone and the Australian-led search, the largest in
aviation history, was suspended in January 2017.
A US exploration firm launched a private hunt in 2018 but it ended after
several months of scouring the seabed without success.
The disappearance of the plane has long been the subject of a host of
theories — ranging from the credible to outlandish — including that veteran
pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah had gone rogue.
In an excerpt from a Sky News documentary airing Wednesday, Abbott claims
he was told within a week of it vanishing that Malaysia believed the captain
had intentionally downed the jet.
“My very clear understanding from the very top levels of the Malaysian
government is that from very, very early on here, they thought it was murder-
suicide by the pilot,” he said.
“I’m not going to say who said what to whom but let me reiterate, I want to
be absolutely crystal clear, it was understood at the highest levels that
this was almost certainly murder-suicide by the pilot — mass murder-suicide
by the pilot.”
Zaharie’s family and friends have long strongly rejected such claims as
baseless.
In 2016, Malaysian officials revealed he had plotted a path over the Indian
Ocean on a home flight simulator but stressed this did not prove he
deliberately crashed the plane.
A final report into the tragedy released in 2018 pointed to failings by air
traffic control and said the course of the plane was changed manually.
But they failed to come up with any firm conclusions, leaving relatives
angry and disappointed.
Six passengers were Australian, including four from Queensland state, where
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk this week suggested authorities may pursue an
inquest into their deaths.
BSS/AFP/FI/ 0814 hrs