Who was the copilot of MH370?

Now writer Christine Negroni has suggested that the tragic jet's demise may have been caused by a sudden depressurising of the cabin killing everybody on board. She believes the Boeing 777's captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah may have been on a break at the time with co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid at the controls.



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The co-pilot of MH370 may have flown on his own for hours after everybody else on board died, an aviation expert has claimed.

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Charles Hew Crooks, 23, who had no alcohol or drugs in his system, told the pilot he was feeling sick before he fell to his death on July 29, authorities said. The death of a pilot who fell out of a twin-engine plane in North Carolina in July was an accident, according to his autopsy report.

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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. But as the third anniversary of the disappearance of the plane nears, no other resolution seems in sight.

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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.

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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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However, friends of Zaharie Shah claimed the pilot was lonely and sad and was believed to be clinically depressed, The Atlantic reported.

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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.

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Not only did this confirm the plane was not intact, but modelling of ocean currents concluded that MH370 crashed in the southern Indian Ocean near Western Australia, and ocean currents then transported debris to Africa a year later.

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While it has been established beyond doubt that the plane crashed into the ocean, with no survivors, the families of the dead understandably refuse to accept this conclusion.

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The Malaysian passengers on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 included Datin Biby Nazli Mohd Hassim, Chen Wei Hiong, Karmooi Chew, Ch'ng Mei Ling, Anne Daisy, Dina Mohamed Ramli, Huajin Guan, Puiheng Hue, Lee Kah Kin, Lee Sew Chu and Lim Pou Chua, among others.

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The plane's black box has never been found. In July 2015, a piece of debris — similar to a wing part found on jets like the Malaysia Airlines plane — washed up on Reunion, a small island in the Indian Ocean. The item, known as a flaperon, was examined by French experts, who concluded that the fragment was from MH370.

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These include items found by Blaine Gibson, an American lawyer who has gone on self-funded expeditions around the world to look for MH370 debris. Among other things, in Madagascar he found a seat back panel that could have housed a monitor.

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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.

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Several other planes have disappeared in the region including five US bombers that vanished in 1945, but in spite of massive air and sea searches, no trace of the bodies or aircraft was ever found. In 2009 a flight from Rio De Janeiro to Paris crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, killing 228 passengers and crew.

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In the case of MH370, the authorities believe that the primary transponder was turned off, and the backup didn't activate. In any case, once an aircraft is more than 240km (150 miles) out to sea, radar coverage fades and air crew keep in touch with air traffic control and other aircraft using high-frequency radio.

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After the discovery of the debris, some speculated that flight 370 was shot down, but no evidence of shrapnel from a missile or other projectiles has been found.

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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? >>

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Dutch prosecutors said that there are strong indications that the Russian president decided on supplying a Buk missile system — the weapon that downed MH17 — to Ukrainian separatists.

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