MH370 pilot '˜deliberately dodged radar' to ensure plane was never found

The pilot of the missing flight MH370 deliberately dodged radar to ensure the plane was never found, aviation experts have claimed.

9M-MRO, the aircraft that disappeared, in 2011. Picture: Laurent Errerea/Wikicommons

A panel assembled by an Australian news programme made the bold claim after reviewing the evidence in the case of the vanished jumbo jet.

They concluded the 239 passengers and crew were the victims of a “deliberate” and “suicidal” act carried out by the jet’s Malaysian captain Zaharie Amad Shah.

The panel found evidence suggested Shah executed a careful series of manoeuvres to evade detection and ensure the plane disappeared in a remote location, including flying across Malaysian and Thai borders to avoid military radar as part of his plans to ensure the Malaysia Airline flight could not be traced.

They all agreed the probability of the disappearance being an accident was “one in a trillion” adding Shah “deliberately” ditched the plane in the Indian Ocean west of Australia.

“I think the general public can take comfort in the fact that there is a growing consensus on the plane’s final moments,” said air crash investigator Larry Vance.

He added the pilot “was killing himself” and took the passenger aircraft to the most remote place possible so it would “disappear” for ever on March 8, 2014.

“Unfortunately, he was (also) killing everybody else on board, and he did it deliberately,” he added.

The Malaysian government has so far made no comment on the question of Zaharie’s possible involvement.

A second intensive search for remains of the plane began in January this year.