Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared without a trace almost four months ago, and now, after an extensive search costing millions and involving numerous countries has proved fruitless, an official police probe has named the plane’s pilot as the prime suspect in the Flight MH370 mystery.
While Malaysian police investigators have not ruled out an accidental crash or a terrorist incident in the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777’s disappearance, they are focusing on pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah, who they describe as “in no state of mind to fly,” following the breakup of his marriage as well as difficulties in his relationship with a woman who was not his wife.
Police sources in Malaysia also revealed to London’s Sunday Times that the home flight simulator constructed by Shah contained programs to practice flights extending a great distance over the Indian Ocean , as well as simulations of an island-landing on an excessively short runway.
Those flight simulation programs had been deleted — presumably by Shah — from his home flight simulator’s computer, but investigators were able to recover them.
The investigators also said that all other passengers on board Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 had been cleared — but not the pilot.
Zaharie’s family has denied that the 53-year-old Shah was experiencing any personal or psychological problems, but his wife of 30 years who was also his childhood sweetheart has since gone into seclusion, moving out of the home she once shared with Shah.
“She can’t bear to be there right now because there are too much memories. She said she can’t stay there,” said her brother Asuad Khan. “You know someone since childhood. You have been married to that person for 30 years and suddenly he disappears without a trace. How do you feel if that happens? That’s how she is feeling.”
Khan said that his brother-in-law had strong reasons to remain alive: his daughter, and his five-year-old grandson whom Khan called the Flight MH370 pilot’s “best friend.”
“He was devoted to the little boy,” said Khan.
Shah’s daughter, Aishah, has publicly denounced the suspicions leveled against her father as “lies.” Friends of the missing pilot have also spoken in his defense.
“To me he had everything in life. He had everything to lose. He is a cheerful, jovial man, a complete professional who would know what to do in a crisis,” said a former school classmate of Shah, Nasir Osman.
“This is a promise, if they blame him, I’ll fight,” said Khan. “I just won’t sit down, keep quiet. Because if you say that he wanted suicide in the Indian Ocean, I say prove it. Why would he want to kill 238 people with him? Why would he be so stupid? He is not.”
Malaysian police have yet to officially publish their findings on the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappearance, only leaking their views to the media.