MH370 Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah is believed to have downed the aircraft in an act of murder-suicide
After years of investigations, the mystery surrounding doomed flight MH370 could finally be laid to rest.
The Malaysian government will release its final report on the aircraft on Monday, more than four years after the plane went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014.
Years of investigations have found no firm evidence as to what happened to the Malaysia Airlines plane, which was carrying 239 people including six Australians.
The Malaysian Minister of Transport Anthony Loke said the report would be released on Monday after families of those on board were briefed.
‘Every word recorded by the investigation team will be tabled in this report,’ he said.
‘It will be tabled fully, without any editing, additions or redactions.’
Pieces of debris have been found as far away as La Reunion (pictured), but the main body of the plane has still not been located
More than four years after the aircraft vanished on March 8, 2014, investigators have had little luck in finding the wreckage of the plane that vanished with 227 passengers on-board, plus the captain, co-pilot and 10 crew.
Captain Zaharie Shah, who was going through a marriage breakup, is believed to have downed the aircraft in an act of murder-suicide, by diverting from the flight path and plunging into the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Western Australia.
The four-year search for MH370 ended in May after the US-based technology firm Ocean Infinity failed to locate the plane while canvassing 125,000sq/km of the Indian Ocean.
Malaysia had signed a ‘no find, no fee’ deal with Ocean Infinity to resume the hunt for the plane after the official search led by Australia, Malaysia and China was called off in early 2017.
The Malaysian Minister of Transport Anthony Loke said the report would be released after families of those on board were briefed
Several theories have emerged about how the plane disappeared, with some suggesting the plane was hijacked and others believing someone on board may have deliberately turned off the plane’s transponder before diverting it over the Indian Ocean.
‘I FOUND IT ON GOOGLE EARTH’
An Australian engineer, Peter McMahon claimed he found what appeared to be a plane wreckage on Google Earth.
After years combing an online map of the Indian Ocean, the amateur crash investigator claimed to have found the wreckage ‘riddled with bullet holes’.
WAS MH370 STOLEN?
Prior to the plane’s disappearance, Captain Zaharie Shah had listed the small island of Diego Garcia – 4700km northwest of Australia – on his flight simulator.
Theorists suggested that Capt Shah may have been practicing landing the plane on the island’s airstrip, which is controlled by Britain but is home to a US naval base.
Suggestions have also been made that the plane may have been stolen by terrorists and hidden in North Pakistan, or even by North Korean dictator Kim Jong un.
In a 2014 poll on the MH370 disappearance, five per cent of American respondents said they believed it had been affected by ‘alien activities’.
Pieces of debris have been found as far away as La Reunion (pictured) but the main body of the aircraft has gone undiscovered
DID THE PILOT COMMIT SUICIDE?
Some have claimed that one of the pilots may have deliberately crashed the aircraft in a well-planned suicide.
According to this theory, captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah deliberately chose to plunge the plane into an area of the ocean up to 25,000 feet deep, where it would be almost impossible to find.
There have been suggestions Shah circled an area of the Indian Ocean just moments before the crash.
Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott is among those to support this theory, saying in the lead up to the third anniversary of the plane’s disappearance he found it ‘plausible’.
‘I have always said the most plausible scenario was murder-suicide and if this guy wanted to create the world’s greatest mystery why wouldn’t he have piloted the thing to the very end and gone further south?’ Mr Abbott said.