Abbott’s bombshell over MH370 mystery

THE disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was deemed a mass murdersuicide by the captain within days of it vanishing but those hunting for the aircraft were not specifically told, former prime minister Tony Abbott has sensationally revealed.

Two formal investigations led by Australia and Malaysia were unable to come up with a conclusive reason for what happened to MH370, which disappeared on March 8, 2014, with the loss of 239 people including six Australian passengers.

The more than $200 million spent on searches for the aircraft was based on the aircraft’s trajectory being from a ‘ghost plane’, meaning the pilot was also dead at the time of the incident and the aircraft flew on and crashed after running out of fuel. Significantly, Malaysian investigators gave the pilot, Captain Zaharie Shah, the all clear.

But in an explosive segment of Sky News’ MH370 documentary airing tonight, Mr Abbott reveals he was told within a week of its disappearance “by the highest” echelons of the Malaysian Government that the flight was downed by the captain as a murder-suicide.

And Mr Abbott now says as that knowledge was not understood by investigators then, a new search was required now.

“My very clear understanding, from the very top levels of the Malaysian Government is that from very, very early on here, they thought it was murder-suicide by the pilot,” he told Sky.

“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, mass murder-suicide by the pilot.”

That high source is believed to be the then Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, although Mr Abbott declined to name him.

He also said he did not know what evidence led to that conclusion and he never bothered to ask.

When asked if he had passed that knowledge on to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau conducting an investigation or his then transport minister Warren Truss to help define a search area based on that theory, Mr Abbott was not as clear.

“What I believed was happening, and what I certainly expected to happen, was that the search would cover the maximum possible range of that aircraft. I had no reason to think that the search was being restricted on the basis that the pilot had nothing to do with it.”

Mr Truss said he could not recall being specifically advised about the murder-suicide belief but considered it just “a consideration”.

Former chief of the Australian Defence Force Angus Houston, who was brought in to co-ordinate the search for the aircraft, said Mr Razak never mentioned to him what he believed had happened.

“He didn’t indicate what he thought had happened and neither did prime minister Abbott,” he said.

The then head of the ATSB Martin Dolan also said no one had passed this suspicion directly to him.