Australia says no clues from FBI report on MH370 pilot

SYDNEY // Australia yesterday brushed off a reported FBI investigation into the pilot of missing flight MH370, saying it was a matter for Malaysia and did not shed any light on the aircraft’s location.

On Friday, New York magazine cited a secret FBI document showing that the jet’s captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, had used his elaborate home-built flight simulator to chart a route similar to the one believed taken by the doomed plane weeks before it disappeared.

The revelation reignited speculation in the Australian media yesterday that the unsolved mystery could have been a murder-suicide.

“I’m aware, as is the government, of the reports about the FBI investigation into the MH370 captain’s home simulator,” said Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull. “I’m unable to comment on them other than to say that it’s a matter for the Malaysian investigators when they’re considering their final report into this tragedy.

“I just note that even if the simulator information does show that it is possible or very likely that the captain planned this shocking event, it does not tell us the location of the aircraft.”

Australia has been leading the search for the Malaysia Airlines plane, which is believed to have gone down in the southern Indian Ocean after vanishing on March 8, 2014, travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people aboard.

With the 120,000-square-kilometre designated search zone almost scoured, Malaysia, China and Australia agreed last week to suspend the hunt if nothing turned up.

According to a confidential document from Malaysian police investigating the incident, obtained by the New York magazine, the FBI recovered deleted data points from the flight simulator on Shah’s hard drive.

“We found a flight path that leads to the southern Indian Ocean, among the numerous other flight paths charted on the flight simulator, that could be of interest,” the document said, according to the magazine.

At the time of the crash Shah came under scrutiny amid unsubstantiated reports that he was upset over a jail sentence handed to Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim hours before the plane took off or was suicidal owing to personal problems.

His family and friends rejected such claims as baseless.