KUALA LUMPUR: Police are still examining MH370 pilot, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah’s personal flight simulator and are waiting for a full report from its US counterpart, Inspector General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar said this morning.
This contradicts what Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said earlier this week, that there was nothing detected on the flight simulator to link the pilot to any act of terrorism.
“Police are still investigating the simulator and we have not received any report from our counterparts on the matter.
“There is nothing conclusive for now,” Khalid said during a police event in Cheras.
Khalid revealed that police were continuing to record statements from family members of flight MH370 passengers, crew and pilots.
“We are still talking to the families and so far we have recorded 170 statements.”
Asked to clarify the status of investigations, Khalid said at the moment police have cleared all passengers from four aspects – hijack, terrorism, personal and psychological problems.
He also denied claims that the FBI has taken over control of the investigation.
“The FBI is only using their intelligence, expertise and advice. PDRM is leading it (the investigation),” Khalid said.
“We may not even know the reason behind this incident (the vanishing of MH370). That’s why we can’t comment. Locating the black box and uncovering what’s in it is also part of investigations.”
The top cop mirrored Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein’s recent view that the foreign media should be sued for their reports accusing Malaysian police officers of speculating.
“We investigate every matter thoroughly that is why the investigation is taking time. That does not mean we are not doing our job.”
“I do somehow agree with Hishammuddin’s sentiment,” he said.
Loss probed as crime
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) today quoted Khalid as saying that the probe into the MH370 affair has been classified as a criminal investigation.
Khalid would not reveal what police had so far found out, saying the disclosure might affect the prosecution’s work later on, reported the daily.
Last week, when Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak announced that Flight MH370 had ended in the Indian Ocean, he said the aircraft’s communications systems were deliberately switched off by “someone with the know-how”.
Police have since raided the home of pilot Zaharie and confiscated his flight simulator.
WSJ said Malaysian authorities had handed over the simulator’s hard drives to the FBI after discovering that some information had been deleted.
Since MH370′s disappearance, the International Air Transport Association has announced that it would form a task force to make recommendations on how to track jetliners on a continuous basis.
However, the Airline Pilots Association, the world’s biggest union of pilots, has indicated that it is not pleased with the idea.
The association warned that live-streaming of information from flight data recorders could lead to the release or leak of clues that could make pilots look bad before all facts about an accident were made known.
Mystery may never be solved
Meanwhile, in the same press conference, Khalid warned that authorities may never learn what caused the mysterious disappearance of flight MH370, as he indicated a three-week-old criminal investigation has so far been inconclusive.
“Give us more time,” said Khalid.
“We may not even know the real cause of this incident.”
The sober assessment is unlikely to go down well with anxious family members of the missing passengers, especially Chinese relatives who have fiercely attacked Malaysia’s government and the airline as incompetent “liars” and “murderers”.
Two thirds of the 227 passengers were Chinese.
Source: FMT
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