Report fails families No cause found in MH370’s disappearance

WHEN MH370 changed its course and flew away in the opposite direction with 239 people on board it was “likely” under manual control, not autopilot, a long-awaited report into one of aviation’s greatest mysteries says.

The report said the communication systems on the plane were also “likely” to have been manually turned off or had power interrupted to them but there was no suggestion the flight was trying to evade radar.

But it makes no suggestion that the pilot Captain Zaharia Ahmed Shah (below), co-pilot or crew had anything to do with the plane’s disappearance, saying that the pilot had nothing in his background, family and medical history to suggest he was harbouring problems.

The pilot’s home flight simulator, which was examined, found “there were no unusual activities other than game-related flight simulations”, saying that manually programmed points could not be shown to have plotted a course to the southern Indian Ocean where it is believed MH370 is now resting.

The 500-plus-page report from the Malaysian Safety Investigation Team was released in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, four and a half years after MH370 disappeared on a routine flight from Malaysia to Beijing on March 8, 2014.

The report, which contained no new information from the investigation team and which lamented only the discovery of MH370 itself would lead to the truth, was dedicated to the memory of the passengers and crew.

“They will be forever missed by their families, friends and colleagues, but never forgotten.”

The report was released first yesterday to family members in Kuala Lumpur who were briefed by investigators about the findings before it was later publicly released.

A last-minute offer to fly foreign families to Malaysia was slammed by families, including Sunshine Coast woman Danica (below right).

Ms Weeks, whose husband Paul was on board the plane, said she felt “deflated” by the failure of the report to reveal anything new.

“Where does that leave us? We are in the wheel again going around and around. It just keeps on going and it just sucks,” Ms Weeks said.

“You have all these hopes that one day someone is going to tell you where your husband is, but it doesn’t happen.

Melbourne-based Jennifer Chong, whose husband Chong Ling Tan, a Malaysian citizen was on the plane, last night tweeted her disappointment: “1605 days Weeks the missing plane.

The report states “there is no evidence to suggest that a malfunction had caused the aircraft to divert from its filed flight plan route”.

Dr Kok Soo Chon, head of the search team, suggested the investigation did not believe the pilot was responsible.

“We cannot deny that there was a turn-back. We are not ruling out any possibility,” he said.

“(But) we are not of the opinion it could be an event committed by the pilot.”

A reconstruction flight, in a B777 simulator, found the first turn-back was likely made while the aircraft was under manual control and not the autopilot. But it could not be established if the other turns made were manual or autopilot.