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COMMENT: In FTR #790, we discussed the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. A recent Daily Mail story reinforces the investigative focus on the plane’s pilot–Zaharie Shah. It also reinforces the fact that Shah was a follower of Anwar Ibrahim.
- A prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
- A c0-founder of the International Institute of Islamic Thought–one of the institutions that was a focal point of the Operations Green Quest raids of 3/20/2002. Those raids centered on the SAAR network, individuals and institutions apparently involved with funding Al Qaeda, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
- A consulting client of GOP kingpin Grover Norquist.
Captain Zaharie Shah, 53, was the main subject of the criminal inquiry
Intelligence checks on everyone else on board the flight were cleared. The captain had no future social or work plans, unlike the rest of the crew. Evidence from his programmed flight simulator also allegedly showed him rehearsing landing on small runway in southern Indian Ocean. The program was deleted but later recovered by computer experts.
The captain of MH370 is now ‘chief suspect’ in Malaysia’s official police investigation into the ongoing mystery of the Malaysia Airlines jet’s disappearance — after investigators found suspicious evidence from a flight simulator in his home.
Captain Zaharie Shah, 53, reportedly used his home simulator to practice take-off and landings in remote locations, including some airstrips in the southern Indian Ocean.
Investigators have now managed to obtain the files — which had been deleted before they swept the machine.
After more than 170 interviews, detectives determined that Captain Shah was the most likely culprit if the plane — which went missing on March 8 with 239 people on board — was lost due to human intervention, according to The Sunday Times.
The criminal inquiry completed intelligence checks on all of the people on board the flight to Beijing via Kuala Lumpur, but the only individual arousing suspicion was Captain Zaharie. . . .
. . . . The police investigation is still ongoing. To date no conclusions can be made as to the contributor to the incident and it would be sub judice (a legal term referring to not commenting on ongoing cases) to say so,’ Malaysian police were quoted a saying.
‘Nevertheless, the police are still looking into all possible angles.’
Captain Shah was said to be a ‘fanatical’ supporter of the country’s opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim — jailed for homosexuality just hours before the jet disappeared.
He was described as was an ‘obsessive’ supporter of Ibrahim. And hours before the doomed flight left Kuala Lumpur it is understood 53-year-old Shah attended a controversial trial in which Ibrahim was jailed for five years.
Campaigners say the politician, the key challenger to Malaysia’s ruling party, was the victim of a long-running smear campaign and had faced trumped-up charges.
Police sources have confirmed that Shah was a vocal political activist – and fear that the court decision left him profoundly upset. It was against this background that, seven hours later, he took control of a Boeing 777–200 bound for Beijing and carrying 238 passengers and crew. . . .
Yet another Malyasian jet mystery; why was this jet flying over a war zone? Who really shot it down? And is this ment to engage NATO in the conflict?
LIVE: Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 might have been shot down, Ukraine’s president says
By Agence France-Presse
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/17/malaysia-airlines-flight-mh17-might-have-been-shot-down-ukraines-president-says/
(excerpt)
A Malaysian passenger liner flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur has crashed in insurgency-wracked east Ukraine, regional officials said Thursday, as Ukraine’s president said the jet may have been shot down.
Malaysia Airlines said it had “lost contact” with the Boeing passenger liner, which Ukrainian officials said had come down in a rebel-held zone in the Donetsk region.
“Malaysia Airlines has lost contact of MH17 from Amsterdam,” the airline, still reeling from the disappearance of flight MH370, said on its Twitter account.
“The last known position was over Ukrainian airspace,” it said, promising more details soon.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said the jet may have been shot down.
“We do not exclude that the plane was shot down and confirm that the Ukraine Armed Forces did not fire at any targets in the sky,” Poroshenko said in a statement posted on the president’s website.
Regional officials in Donetsk confirmed the plane had come down near the town of Shaktarsk.
“The number of dead is not yet known,” the administration said in a statement.
Emergency services were rushing to the scene, a security source told Interfax-Ukraine.
US stocks fell sharply following reports the Malaysia Airlines plane had been shot down, while Britain’s Foreign Office said it was “working urgently to find out what’s happened.”
The incident comes just months after Malaysia’s Flight MH370 disappeared on March 8 with 239 on board. The plane diverted from its Kuala Lumpur to Beijing flight path and its fate remains a mystery despite a massive aerial and underwater search.
—————————-
More at link
http://www.ibtimes.co.in/mh370-mh17-tragedies-were-caused-due-un-islamic-behaviours-like-serving-alcohol-exposing-612933
A senior lecturer of the National Defence University recognised as Ridhuan Tee, has offered a theological contention as the main reasons behind the tragedies of MH370 and MH17, implying that if the Malaysian airlines had adhered to Islamic behaviours or customs, the accidents would never have happened.
MH370 and MH17: A senior lecturer of the National Defence University recognized as Ridhuan Tee, has offered a theological contention as the main reasons behind the tragedies.Reuters
In his column titled “Buka Minda” (Open your mind) written for Malaysian publication, Sinar Harian on Monday, Tee said that Malaysian airlines MH370 went missing and MH17 was shot down earlier in the year simply because Malaysians are increasingly refusing to be more ‘Islamic’.
He latched on the idea that more Islamic culture should be observed on board Malaysian flights, by narrating his own experience while flying a Royal Brunei Airlines fight recently.
“The flight began with a beautiful reciting of prayers and well wishes,” that made him feel that “Allah was with us,” he said in a quote translated by Free Malaysia Today.
“Aren’t the lessons of MH17 and MH370 not enough?” Tee asked adding that these days the in-flight crew do not bother to dress in a more Islamic manner and that they serve alcohol – something that is prohibited in Islam.
Noting that the tourists “are practically bathing in alcohol in their own countries”, the official concluded by offering an advice to Malaysian airlines in order to avoid accidents in future:
“My advice: observe a more Islamic way of life before Allah unleashes his wrath on you.”
“Forget those who are not interested in entering heaven. They are but products of the West bent on destroying Muslims in our country.”
This is the first time a relatively renowned senior official has provided a theological explanation on why the two flights met their fate earlier in the year.
It looks like investigators are warming to a new theory that MH370 was deliberately taken off course and crashed by the Zaharie Ahmad Shah. The theory centers around three sharp turns taken around the island of Penang, where Shah was born. It thought that those three turns basically gave Shah one last emotional view of his home island before he deliberately landed the plane on the ocean intact:
Here’s more on the new theory about Zaherie Shah’s final goodbye to the island of Penang:
With the world scratching its head trying to figure out why the Germanwings co-pilot intentionally crashed flight 9525, Mark Ames brings us one possible motive that’s both rather mundane and ominous. It’s a theory of a mundane motive that Andeas Lubitz might have simply been a disgruntled worker that “went postal”. But it’s rather ominous since it sounds like a lot of other pilots at his airline might have reason to feel disgruntled right about now too:
Keep in mind that one of Lufthansa pilot strikes ended just two days before the crash. So if it’s eventually concluded that Lubitz “went postal” on the plane over the gutting of pilot wages and benefits, it’ll be interesting to see how this tragedy impacts the public sentiment regarding the German pilot strike. Is there going to be some sort of irrational anti-union/anti-pilot backlash or might it lead to greater public support for the pilots over the “hard bargain” Lufthansa is driving with its employees? It’s something to watch.
^^
Lufthansa pilots to hold off strikes after crash — Tagesspiegel
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/lufthansa-pilots-hold-off-strikes-crash-tagesspiegel-162744065–finance.html#AGliyuI
Excerpt:
“FRANKFURT (Reuters) — Lufthansa pilots will hold off staging further strikes after an aircraft operated by Lufthansa’s budget unit Germanwings crashed in France on Tuesday, newspaper Tagesspiegel said, citing labour union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC).
“Industrial action is not on the agenda anymore right now,” the paper quoted VC board member Joerg Handwerg as saying.
VC was not immediately available to confirm the report.”
@Mother Muckraker: Nice catch!
Along those lines, it looks like some sort of mental illness/revenge against “the system” sentiment is the primary culprit in crash of Germanwings flight 4U 9525, but it’s worth noting that workplace stress also appears to be one of the external factors driving his anger:
The guy was obviously severely disturbed so it’s very possible he would have found a reason to do this even without all the pilot strikes and pay cuts (or the vilification of the pilots in the German media during the strikes).
But while the media is inevitably going to go into “how can we stop crazy pilots from doing crazy things”-mode and call for increasing the mental health screenings for pilots, the fact that airline pilots is one of the sectors of the global economy that’s come under increasingly brutal pressures should probably be part of the conversation if we’re actually serious about minimizing the likelihood of an event like this happening again. New pilots for regional airlines get near minimum wages in the US and the trend for Europe’s pilots is for even more cuts and more pressure (hence the strikes that were just called off).
So it will be interesting to see how much meaningful coverage there is of the role pilot austerity may have played in this entire tragedy. Sure, pay cuts are no excuse for committing mass murder, but when we’re talking about people with undiagnosed or hidden severe mental illnesses/personality disorders of the type Lubitz appears to have suffered from (a miniscule subset of the mentally ill), it’s not like the ethics of mass murder due to anger over pay cuts is a factor. Minimizing the general crappiness of people’s lives has a number of generic benefits and one of those benefits just might be giving the potentially murderously insane one less excuse to “teach the world a lesson” or some such madness.
While it looks like the crash of Malaysian Air flight 370 was most likely due to a suicidal pilot, it’s worth noting that one of the earlier theories under consideration — that the plane’s computer systems were remotely hijacked — can’t be ruled out for any future air disaster:
No GAO update yet on the black hole theory. And there never will be.
Want to earn a million free miles from United Airlines? You can do it. Just find a vulnerability that allows you to remotely execute code on the flight systems. Unless the vulnerability involves hacking in through the onboard entertainment systems. That will get a much crappier reward in the form of a criminal investigation:
Yes, flying the friendly skies just got friendlier for airline IT security experts. Unless, of course, those airline security experts jokingly tweet about how they might shut the oxygen off and then tell the feds about how they’ve previously taken control of planes via the entertainment systems:
It’s worth noting that in addition to all of this being news of a rather alarming security vulnerability, it’s also a reminder to always change the default passwords:
Change your passwords people!
But it’s also reminder that we’ve been hearing stories from security researchers about hacking into planes via their entertainment systems for a few years now:
So while this new news all rather unsettling, it’s not newly unsettling.
Fortunately, a number of experts appear to be taking Roberts’s alleged in-flight hacking with a grain of salt. Unfortunately, with enough time, that grain of salt is going to dissolve:
“While it’s doubtful whether this guy could have accessed anything really important by hacking the in-flight entertainment system, it’s likely that he will be able to do so in the near future.” Yikes.
Also keep in mind that, as we as above from the 2013 article, the presence of a pilot might be enough to stop most of these types of hacking attempts:
So hopefully whatever techniques Roberts may have stumbled upon are the types of attacks that a pilot can potentially override. Well, at least until planes go pilotless.
At that point, autopilot could still help but it might require some extra hardware (hopefully soft hardware since that would be adorable)
One of the groups searching for wreckage of Malaysia Airlines jet MH370 has arrived at a conclusion that the rest of the search teams appear to have categorically rejected and continue to do so: The reason no wreckage has been found is because searchers are looking in the wrong place due to a mistaken assumption that the pilots were dead or unconscious on the way down:
“Deciding the search area in 2014, authorities assumed the plane had no “inputs” during its final descent, meaning there was no pilot or no conscious pilot. They believe it was on auto-pilot and spiraled when it ran out of fuel.”
Yes, the assumption that the pilots were unconscious was the only assumption that went into determining the search area up until now. But at least some searchers are changing that assumption. For the first time officially:
So at least one group of searchers is even willing to ponder the possibilities that are consistent with the theory that Captain Zaharie Shah intentionally crashed the plane. Or intentionally flew it into a black hole. We obviously can’t rule that out.
When reports came out a couple of weeks ago that Dutch investigators are, only now, considering the possibility that MH370 was actively piloted during its descent and no other investigation teams appear even interesting in that line of inquiry, it became pretty obvious that crash investigators up to this point really, really, really didn’t want to end up concluding that Captain Zaharie Shah intentionally crashed the plane despite the fact that he was the chief suspect at one point based, in part, on the discovery that Shah had a home flight simulator with the path of the doomed flight.
Well, thanks to someone from the Malaysian police who passed some documents to New York Magazine last month, avoiding the conclusion about Captain Shah intentionally crashed the plane just got really, really, really hard to do since the documents reportedly show Shah computer had a deleted file of a simulated flight deep into the remote southern Indian Ocean that ended with the plane running out of fuel created less than a month before the disappearance:
“The newly unveiled documents, however, suggest Malaysian officials have suppressed at least one key piece of incriminating information. This is not entirely surprising: There is a history in aircraft investigations of national safety boards refusing to believe that their pilots could have intentionally crashed an aircraft full of passengers. After EgyptAir 990 went down near Martha’s Vineyard in 1999, for example, Egyptian officials angrily rejected the U.S. National Transport Safety Board finding that the pilot had deliberately steered the plane into the sea. Indonesian officials likewise rejected the NTSB finding that the 1997 crash of SilkAir 185 was an act of pilot suicide.”
Yeah, it sure does look like Malaysian investigators have been suppressing evidence, although it sounds like it wasn’t suppressed entirely since the FBI apparently knew of them already:
So it sounds like the documents leaked to New York Magazine by a Malaysian police source were basically an open secret, which raises the question as to whether or not this leak was intended to get the story out. Maybe doing it as a leak could cushions the blow when the Malaysian government eventually breaks the news to the Malaysian public that the nightmare scenario of a suicidal Muslim Brotherhood fanboy pilot intentionally crashed the plane is the likeliest scenario given the available evidence?
Who knows what the motive was for the leak. Maybe it was just an appalled member of Malaysia’s police force. But it does appear to be the case that all of the various groups involved in the investigation are increasingly moving towards the theory that Captain Shah was the culprit. Albeit not right right. The Malayasian police denied the report and denied any documents showing such evidence had ever been turned over in the days following this New York Magazine report. Australian officials, in the other hand, did confirm that such documents exist:
“But the story was flatly denied by the Malaysian authorities, says The Guardian. The national police chief, Khalid Abu Bakar, said Malaysia had not handed documents or information to the FBI or any overseas authority.”
That’s a pretty bold denial by the Malaysian police a few days after the New York Magazine report considering articles about Captain Shah’s conspicuous flight simulation were first made two years ago. Malaysian authorities really, really, really must not like this theory, which means they probably weren’t too happy about the report from a week later about expert claims that the analysis of a recovered portion of the wing indicate someone must have been piloting the plane because the piece was extended in a manner that requires human activation:
“But Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said the government is not aware of claims that Zaharie had run a simulation of the southern Indian Ocean air route one week before the jet disappeared, adding that investigation is ongoing.”
The mysterious might simulation was conducted not just less than a month before the doomed flight be a week before it? That certainly helps explain why the Malaysian government, which clearly wants to have absolutely nothing to do with this theory, want absolutely nothing to do with the knowledge of this flight simulation. Especially now that analysis of the recovered pieces further point towards an actively piloted descent.
So what’s the Malaysian government spin going to be when it’s finally forced to acknowledge that the growing pile of incriminating evidence? Well, it can always acknowledge that the evidence exists but is inconclusive and unhelpful to speculate about:
“Yes, he had simulated the flight path, but it is one of thousands of simulations to many parts of the world.”
LOL. Yes, the ominous flight simulation that took place a week before the doomed flight was just one of thousands of simultations. Be sure to not jump to any conclusions:
So that’s the Malaysian government’s spin. At least at this point: Yes, the rumored and long denied evidence pointing towards Captain does exist, but don’t jump to any conclusions. Better yet, be sure to conclude the previous conclusions that were arrived at while the information about this mystery simulation was mysteriously being ignored.
As we can see, the investigation of flight MH370 could use an investigation.
Dave, here’s some expert vindication for ya’
Yep, he killed himself, but are they mentioning his adoration for the jailed cleric??
https://www.9news.com.au/national/2018/05/13/21/17/mh370-60-minutes-where-is-the-missing-plane-tara-brown
MH370 captain was suicidal, aviation experts say
Reflections on MH370
By Tara Brown • 60 Minutes Reporter
9:17pm May 13, 2018
The disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, in March 2014, remains one of aviation’s greatest and most shocking mysteries.
How can a plane of that size, with its passengers and crew of 239 people, simply vanish?
Four years on, a mystery of this magnitude has spawned evermore incredulous conspiracy theories and inflamed a blame game where investigators and authorities have been accused equally of ineptitude and cover up.
Of course, at the heart of this tragedy, is the sorrow shadowing the families of those who died aboard MH370.
There were eight victims from Australia who checked into the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, destined to never arrive.
For four years, their families have waited graciously and desperately for answers.
The latest and, most likely, last hunt for the missing plane will come to the end of its promised search time next month.
MH370 search solves maritime mysteries
Ocean Infinity, a high tech team of underwater search specialists, has been combing the seabed looking for the plane and the people who died in it since January.
On 60 Minutes this week, we invited world renowned experts — air crash investigators, senior pilots, oceanographers and the former head of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, the ATSB — to review what is known of the last moments of the MH370 flight to conclude what most likely happened to the plane and why.
They travelled from the UK, the US, Canada, Canberra and Perth to pore over and explain all information gathered on MH370.
Their expertise, while not always in agreement, was illuminating.
Our aim was to hear their professional assessment and to understand why the initial search was done where it was; a search that has failed to find the missing plane.
While the information they each rely on to draw their conclusions is highly technical these are men of great passion, who persuasively deliver on their point of view.
While they had never met prior to joining our Situation Room, they very quickly engaged with one another as they argued and counter argued over the fate of the doomed aircraft.
Compellingly, they explained the early flight path of MH370, revealing the conscious and clever manoeuvres taken, presumably by the pilot, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, to make his Boeing 777 disappear.
It’s eye opening to learn how easily he did it, first cutting all communication systems and then flying in and out of Thai and Malaysian airspace.
If his aim was to confuse those monitoring military airspace he was undoubtedly successful.
Clearly not on high alert, Malaysian and Thai authorities were unperturbed, or simply didn’t notice, a silent 777 passenger plane traversing their region before heading out to unsupervised sea and flying south, deep into the Indian Ocean.
They are the facts as we now know them. But our investigators also brought a nuance and understanding dry facts don’t always flag.
Simon Hardy, a senior 777 pilot and instructor, clued in on a potentially emotional connection to Penang and therefore a new explanation for why the plane made a seemingly strange turn over the island city.
On learning the MH370 pilot was originally from there, Simon deduced he probably flew over his hometown and dipped his wing to say a final goodbye.
It’s not an unknown practise for pilots to do when flying over places that might be special to them or might be significant to their passengers.
On a number of occasions, Simon has sought permission from air traffic control to change course slightly to get a better look at Uluru. He dips the wing so his passengers can get to see the big red rock. It’s this habit which led him to his Penang explanation. A Eureka moment in this confounding disappearance.
All our experts agree, it is most likely the pilot was in control of the plane at the beginning of the flight.
The most enduring difference of opinion between our hard-headed panel was what happened at the end of flight: was Captain Zaharie still controlling the plane to land it somewhere in the ocean, or after setting his course south did he then suicide by depressurising the cockpit, or did he somehow lose control to finally let it crash into the sea?
The ATSB maintains the most likely scenario is that no one was controlling the plane at the end of flight; flying on autopilot, once it ran out of fuel, the aircraft made a steep and fast descent into the ocean.
The significance of this scenario is it sets a relatively easily definable area to search.
If it is the most likely scenario, based on many things including some extraordinary mathematical calculations, then it would be negligent not to search this area.
It’s certainly where the ATSB put its money and time.
But with no plane to show for their effort it’s not unreasonable to suggest they may have got it wrong. A concession made to us by Martin Dolan, since retired but who first led the search for MH370 as Commissioner of the ATSB.
The other scenario, the one many pilots consider the only one they can believe, is that the pilot was flying the plane from the beginning to the end, and landed it in the ocean. Why?
To make it as difficult, if not impossible, to ever find.
As we tested in a 777 flight simulator, landing the plane this way takes it out of the defined search areas of both the ATSB and Ocean Infinity.
In the opinion of Martin Dolan, that scenario makes the potential search area a vast and impossible proposition.
Trying to apply rational thought to explain the actions of someone who may have been highly irrational is always fraught, but part of the ongoing mystery surrounding the fate of MH370 is the interpretation of the little evidence that does exist.
To watch first hand those tasked with interpreting it is a window into how perplexing the disappearance of MH370 is to all in the aviation world.
For the families of those still missing “why?” does not matter so much.
“Where?” remains the most pressing question.
Where is the plane? And when will they get to say their final goodbyes to their loved ones who they so happily and casually farewelled four long years ago?
https://www.9now.com.au/60-minutes
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