It’s the air disaster that just didn’t seem to make sense; a modern commercial jet fully-laden with passengers suddenly disappearing in March 2014 and seemingly-crashing somewhere in the remote Indian Ocean.
But now Australia’s Prime Minister at the time says he knows the answer; a heart-broken and mentally-ill pilot committed murder-suicide after taking over the plane.
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott says he was told by the best experts of the Malaysian Government from where the plane originated that those on Malaysian Airways flight MH370 were killed by a suicidal pilot.
“My understanding, 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 a murder suicide by the pilot,” Mr Abbott said in a television documentary on the mystery.
MH370 vanished on March 8, 2014 after leaving Kuala Lumpur airport. It was destined for Beijing but radio controllers lost contact over the South China Sea.
The crew of the Boeing 777-200ER aircraft last communicated with air traffic control about 38 minutes after take-off when the flight was over the South China Sea. The aircraft was lost from radar screens minutes later but was tracked by military radar for another hour, deviating westwards from its planned flight path, crossing the Malay Peninsula and Andaman Sea.
It left radar range 200 nautical miles (370 km) northwest of Penang Island in north-western Peninsular Malaysia heading over the Indian Ocean.
Parts of the plane have subsequently washed-up on islands in the Indian Ocean near the African coast indicating that a remote area between Australia and the African coast was the plane’s final destination.
After a huge three-year search in this remote area of the ocean failed to turn-up the wreckage, an inquiry by the Malaysian authorities said that a hypoxia (reduced oxygen) event may have occurred where all the cabin and crew fell asleep and became unconscious in the cabin before the plane crashed.
