Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, seen here in front of flight simulators he had assembled at home, was in charge of the ill-fated MAS flight MH370 on the morning of March 8, 2014. – March 2, 2015.
Just days before the first anniversary of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, a senior Boeing 777 captain with a major commercial airline has weighed in on the mystery, alleging that it was the work of the pilot.
Captain Simon Hardy's theory was reported in UK newspaper Daily Mail today, where he said the main clue was that after flying across the border between Thailand and Malaysia, the aircraft made a sharp u-turn towards Penang, one of three turns made in quick succession.
According to Hardy, the doomed MAS flight seemed to be taken on an emotional "last farewell", as in a fly-past of the pilot's home island of Penang.
"The unusual overflying of Penang is ‘perhaps the only clue to the perpetrator'. It took me months to work out what this was.
"The clue was Ayers Rock," Hardy was quoted as saying by the UK daily, in reference to the giant natural feature and landmark in the heart of Australia.
"I have done the same manoeuvre there, to look down and get a great view. Somebody was taking a last emotional look at Penang."
MAS flight MH370 was helmed by Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, who is from Penang, and First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid from Selangor.
The British pilot also claims that after the alleged "fly-past", flight MH370 was deliberately landed in the middle of the Indian Ocean, "sinking intact thousands of miles away, close to a trench in the sea, thus explaining why no wreckage has ever been found".
According to Daily Mail, Hardy believes that the current search by the Australian Transport Safety Board (ATSB) in the southern Indian Ocean is about 100 nautical miles away from the where the aircraft actually is.
Hardy's theory has also gained support from David Learmount of the respected Flight International magazine and flightglobal website, and who is recognised as a top flight safety specialist in the UK.
Learmount was quoted by Daily Mail as saying: "Since Capt Simon Hardy revealed in Flightglobal/Flight International his calculations about where Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is likely to have come to rest, the ATSB, leading the MH370 search team, has spoken at length to him."
The report adds that the ATSB found Hardy's theory "credible".
Flight MH370 disappeared less than an hour after departing from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 last year. Most of the 239 people on board were Chinese nationals.
The initial search and rescue operations covered the South China Sea, the Straits of Malacca, the Andaman Sea and the southern Indian Ocean, involving 65 aircraft and 95 vessels and experts from 25 countries.
On April 28, 2014, the search and rescue phase transitioned to a underwater search and recovery phase in the southern Indian Ocean about 2,000km west of Perth, on the west coast of Australia, led by the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) and the ATSB.
On January 29, the Malaysian government, through the Department of Civil Aviation, declared that MAS flight MH370 was "lost in an accident, killing all 239 passengers and crew members on board". – March 2, 2015.
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