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The pilot of doomed Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is now said to have exhibited “self-destructive and obsessive online behaviour” before the flight’s disappearance, including a preoccupation with Malaysian twin-sister models 34 years younger than himself.

The result of several investigations into MH370 was published at the weekend, including one which said the missing plane, last seen more than four years ago, may have finally been located in a Cambodian jungle.

The most compelling of the new investigations into the fate of MH370 and the 239 people aboard is by Walkley Award-winning journalist Paul Toohey. It was published on Sunday in News Ltd papers – including Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph, which ran the front page wording: “Captain Sleazebag. MH370 pilot’s dirty secrets”. The story itself was headlined: “Pilot’s sex obsession with twins”.

Toohey alleges Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah used Facebook to pursue Malaysian twin-sister models in the year before the MAS B777-200 disappeared. The author claims investigations have shown the pilot to be “a creepy, manic man, obsessed with younger women and furious at his country’s political direction”.

It says Zaharie, 53 years old and married, did not even bother to conceal his online identity when he “openly chased much younger women on social media and risked his career by putting his name to rants against the ruling government, which owned the airline”.

The Malaysia Airlines B777 vanished four and a half years ago while operating flight MH370. Photographed in 2011

The Malaysia Airlines B777 vanished four and a half years ago while operating flight MH370. Photographed in 2011

In 2013, Zaharie posted 97 separate Facebook comments, some of them suggestive, to Penang-based model Qi Min Lan, Toohey says. He did not know her but was fixated. Toohey adds: “Zaharie was not merely politically active, as some have said, he was virulent.”

In one Facebook rant, Zaharie labelled Malaysia’s then-prime minister, Najib Razak, a “moron”. In retrospect, many feel such public outbursts by a senior flight captain should have raised a red flag.

An aviation expert in Australia said it was extraordinary and disturbing for a senior pilot to make public political statements of that nature when working for an airline owned by the government.

Toohey says Zaharie was also in despair for democracy in his country and in constant back pain. The article quoted a senior psychologist with a deep knowledge of airline matters, who said Zaharie’s online activities should have been an important line of inquiry in the Malaysian investigation. Instead, it was glossed over.

China's anger at Malaysia’s handling of the search for flight MH370, in which so many Chinese citizens died, has made itself felt in many ways

China’s anger at Malaysia’s handling of the search for flight MH370, in which so many Chinese citizens died, has made itself felt in many ways

MEANWHILE, Britain’s Daily Express published an article saying a Google maps image of a plane in Cambodia has thrown open a new line of inquiry into MH370.

The image apparently shows what appears to be plane wreckage in the jungle. Andre Milne, founder of defence technology company Unicorn Aerospace and a private investigator, has called on the search engine giant to help explain the image, the Express said.

Milne told another newspaper, the Daily Star Online: “It is clearly significant that a separate independent analyst was able to concurrently verify not only the existence of the Cambodian Aerospace image in the Google Maps database but that the image itself is also subject to the three-dimensional algorithms of the overall Google Maps program.”

Captain Ahmad Shah

According to the Express, investigators plan to explore the Cambodian jungle next month in search of the plane.

The paper alleges that Malaysian Transport Ministry records show that air controllers received information the plane was in Cambodian airspace.

Some observers suspect the plane wreckage could instead be a US Air Force F-105 Thunderchief fighter bomber, one of many lost in the Vietnam War.

The Daily Star has published claims from Captain Shah’s sister saying she believes her brother’s voice was slurred in his final messages sent to ground control from the cockpit.

And finally, the West Australian reports that two of the world’s leading experts on the disappearance of MH370 have accused Malaysia of failing to faithfully and diligently pursue the investigation.

Mike Exner and Don Thompson, members of the Independent Group (IG) of experts, say the investigation “was heavily politically influenced and delayed”, the paper said.

They have called on Malaysia to make more information public to help independent researchers locate the missing plane.

 

 

 

Written by: Peter Needham

 

 

 

 

 

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