There’s still no sign of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane that vanished in mid-flight more than a week ago.
Investigators are considering suicide in the cockpit as one possible explanation for the plane’s disappearance.
Posts on his Facebook page suggest the pilot, 53-year-old Zaharie Ahmad Shah, was a politically active opponent of the coalition that has ruled Malaysia for the 57 years since independence.
A day before the plane vanished, Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was convicted of sodomy and sentenced to five years in prison, in a ruling his supporters and international human rights groups say was politically influenced.
Asked if Zaharie’s background as an opposition supporter was being examined, the first senior police officer would say only:
“We need to cover all our bases.”
A flight simulator taken by police from the pilot’s house appeared to be normal.
The co-pilot, 27-year-old Fariq Abdul Hamid, spoke the last words heard from the cockpit: “all right, good night.”
Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, Malaysia Airlines CEO explained:
“Initial investigation indicates to us that it was the co-pilot who basically spoke the last time it was recorded on tape,” said Yahya at a news conference on Monday.
When a reporter asked if he had a “recording of that,” Yahya replied: “The recording is with air-traffic control.”
Satellite data suggests the missing plane could be anywhere in either of
two vast corridors that arc through much of Asia:
A southern corridor stretching south from west of Sumatra into the southern Indian Ocean west of Australia, and a northern corridor from Laos to the Caspian.
Kazakhstan, at the end of the northern arc, said it had not detected any “unsanctioned use” of its air space the day the plane disappeared.
