Former Australian Prime Minister Claims 'Top Levels' of Malaysian Government Suspected Pilot of Missing Plane MH370
(PERTH, Australia) — Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said the “top levels” of the Malaysian government long suspected that the
disappearance of a plane almost six years ago was a mass murder-suicide by the pilot. Abbott was prime minister when Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 carrying 239 people vanished on March 8, 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Australia, working on Malaysia’s behalf, coordinated what became the largest search in aviation history, but it failed to find the plane before being ended in 2017.
Speaking in a
Sky News documentary to air on Wednesday and Thursday, Abbott said high-ranking Malaysian officials believed veteran pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah deliberately downed the jet. “My very clear understanding, from the very top levels of the Malaysian government is that from very, very early on, they thought it was murder-suicide by the pilot,” said Abbott, who was Australia’s prime minster from 2013-15.
“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.”
A Malaysian-led independent investigation report released in 2018 said the plane’s course was changed manually but did not name a suspect and raised the possibility of “intervention by a third party.” Investigators, however, said the cause of the disappearance couldn’t be determined until the wreckage and the plane’s black boxes are found.
The Malaysian Ministry of Transport did not immediately respond to questions from
The Associated Press about the remarks from the former Australian leader.
Malaysia has had a change of government since the plane’s disappearance, after Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad ousted the government led by Najib Razak, whose party had ruled Malaysia since its independence in 1957.
The pilot’s family has long denied he was suicidal. The 2018 investigative report said there was no evidence of abnormal behavior or stress in the two pilots and none of the passengers had pilot training.
Abbott said he did not believe conspiracy theories centered on the Malaysian government, which owns Malaysia Airlines. “I’ve read all these stories that the Malaysians allegedly didn’t want the murder-suicide theory pursued because they were embarrassed about one of their pilots doing this. I have no reason to accept that,” he said.
The Australian-led search scoured 120,000 square kilometers (46,000 square miles) of the southern Indian Ocean and cost 200 million Australian dollars ($150 million). A private hunt by Texas-based company Ocean Infinity later searched more than 96,000 square kilometers (37,000 square miles) of sea.
READ MORE ..........
A Malaysian-led independent investigation report released in 2018 said the plane's course was changed manually
time.com
krdo.com
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(479x0:481x2)/ohio-2-99faa93aaf8742d194b2cdbd52ceb81d.jpg)
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(749x0:751x2)/firefighters-ae470913b43248ecbe2eeb3800603534.jpg)
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(749x0:751x2)/amarah-bank-children-9d88ecf297154d4d92d40817820f3870.jpg)
So two deaths.
