FBI brought in by Malaysia to help with MH370 mystery

THE MH370 search may be in its final stages but speculation is set to intensify with the revelation that an FBI report into the incident reveals ‘planning and intent’.

Malaysia's Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai (C) speaks as Chinese Minister of Transport Yang Chuantang (R) and Australia's Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Darren Chester (L) during the joint press conference to announce the suspension of the MH370 search once the current area is fully scoured. Picture: AFP/Mohd Rasfan

AN FBI report on MH370 done at Malaysia’s request showed “planning and intent”, the head of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau has revealed.

ATSB Chief Commissioner Greg Hood said he had seen the FBI report and was “a bit scared by all the caveats” that came with it.

But he said the report done at the request of Malaysia, showed that on February 2, 2014 — just over four weeks before MH370 disappeared — a flight taken by someone using Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah’s home flight simulator reached down into the Southern Indian Ocean.

Air traffic control at Hobart airport. Air Services Executive General Manager, Air Traffic Control, Greg Hood at Hobart Airport.

Although the report reveals the flight was one of many undertaken on Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah’s simulator, the coincidence seems too great to ignore.

Commissioner Hood said the FBI report was suggestive of “planning and intent”.

“It doesn’t really help us in any way,” he said.

“It doesn’t tell us what happened in the final phase of the flight.”

He stressed that the ATSB’s job was not to explain why the plane went dramatically off course just 40 minutes after leaving Kuala Lumpur on a flight to Beijing on March 8, 2014.

From the start, the ATSB has been responsible for co-ordinating the search for the Boeing 777. The few pieces of hard evidence they have suggested the plane came down in the Southern Indian Ocean.

Based on the final satellite communication from the plane to the satellite, the ATSB believes MH370 ran out of fuel and plunged into the sea, at a speed of up to 20,000 feet (6700m) a minute.

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The latest debris find — determined to be almost certainly from MH370 — may even be able to prove that beyond doubt.

Commissioner Hood said they hoped to be able to determine whether the wing part had been deployed for landing or was retracted when it separated from the Boeing 777.

“It would certainly give us some suggestion as to whether it was deployed for a forced landing,” he said.

“We’ve got no evidence either way to say if there was somebody at the controls (at the time).”

With fewer than 10,000 square kilometres of seabed left to search before the operation is suspended indefinitely, Commissioner Hood could be forgiven for losing hope of finding the missing plane.

Waves crash over the back deck of Fugro discover as she continues in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. *** Local Caption *** Fugro Discover continues the seabed search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in the Southern Indian Ocean.

But he said he remained “incredibly positive” because the best minds available were working on the baffling mystery.

“We’ve been a bit delayed by bad weather, in so far as we’re unable to use the deep tow component,” Commissioner Hood said.

“The autonomous underwater vehicle search will mainly be to supplement those small data gaps and of course get down into those areas, the canyons, which the sonar can’t get down to.”

Originally published as FBI brought in by Malaysia to help with MH370 mystery