However, officials in Kuala Lumpur declared that Malaysian police and the FBI's technical experts had found nothing to suggest he was planning to hijack the flight after closely examining his flight simulator.
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Possible causes of the aircraft's disappearanceThe loss of the ACARS and transponder signals spurred ongoing speculation about some form of hijacking, but no individual or group claimed responsibility, and it seemed unlikely that hijackers would have flown the plane to the southern Indian Ocean.
Pilot-assisted suicideA common theory is that Captain Shah locked the first officer out of the flight deck. He switched off the communications systems that were designed to keep MH370 in touch with air-traffic controllers; donned an oxygen mask; and depressurised the aircraft.
The program's experts said Zaharie depressurised the plane to incapacitate passengers and other crew through hypoxia (oxygen deficiency), and used an emergency air supply to stay conscious. He then repressurised the plane for the rest of the journey.
Malaysian police identified the captain as the prime suspect if human intervention was the cause of the disappearance, after clearing all others on the flight of suspicion over possible motives.
What happened to MH370? No one knows what exactly happened, and there are several conspiracy theories. The flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia on 8 March 2014 and was flying towards its planned destination, Beijing Capital International Airport in China.
The pilot in command was 53-year-old Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah from Penang. He joined Malaysia Airlines as a cadet pilot in 1981, and after training and receiving his commercial pilot's licence, he became a second officer with the airline in 1983. ...
The co-pilot was 27-year-old First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid.
Despite extensive search operations, the MH370 was never found. Some claims about the MH370 debris washing ashore did pop up now and then, but there was never any conclusive evidence or claims that the debris actually was of MH370. No dead bodies were found either and neither was the plane's black box.
Some 83 aircraft have been declared “missing” since 1948, according to data compiled by the Aviation Safety Network. The list includes planes capable of carrying more than 14 passengers and where no trace — bodies or debris — has ever been found. Related Graphic: Where Could Flight 370 Be? >>
In 2014 all the families of passengers and crew on board MH370 were offered interim payments of US$50,000, non-conditional and regardless of any legal action, which some accepted.
Plane crashThe most widely accepted explanation for the tragedy was that the plane simply crashed into the sea, potentially due to a mechanical fault. In the subsequent years there have been three pieces of debris positively identified as being from MH370, with a further 30 potential pieces also found.
DID THE PILOT HIJACK HIS OWN PLANE? Pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah planned mass murder because of personal problems, locking his co-pilot out of the cockpit, closing down all communications, depressurising the main cabin and then disabling the aircraft so that it continued flying on auto-pilot until it ran out of fuel.
Wang Moheng, 2, Chinese. The youngest passenger on flight MH370. The son of Wang Rui and Jiao Weiwei, Wang Moheng was only 23 months old at the time of the flight's disappearance. According to friends, his parents had taken him on his first overseas trip to “escape the bad air” of Beijing.
The last voice communication from the crew occurred at 1:19 AM, and at 1:21 AM the plane's transponder, which communicated with air-traffic control, was switched off, just as the plane was about to enter Vietnamese airspace over the South China Sea.
By Cleve R. Wootson Jr. All but one of the 239 people on the doomed Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 had probably been unconscious — incapacitated by the sudden depressurization of the Boeing 777 — and had no way of knowing they were on an hours-long, meandering path to their deaths.
If the plane is somehow kept pressurized, the cabin pressure is usually equivalent of 6000–8000 ft, which is lower pressure than the outside at sea level. Which means as soon as you unlock the door, it will swing inwards with a lot of force, as air from outside rushes in to re-pressurize the cabin.
This valve controls the cabin pressure and also acts as a safety relief valve, in addition to other safety relief valves. If the automatic pressure controllers fail, the pilot can manually control the cabin pressure valve, according to the backup emergency procedure checklist.