I highly recommend Mentour Pilots videos on the topic, for an indepth introduction to the whole story and the new search:
One of the theories is that Shah waited until his co-pilot went to the bathroom, refused to unlock the door from there, and then de-pressurized the cabin so that they all died which left him as the only person alive on-board.
I'm sure there has been a lot of thought put into this locking mechanism so that hijackers can't access the cockpit, but how about the rogue pilot scenario like this one? IIRC, pilots outside can enter a code to unlock the door but it can be rejected by the person inside (so it really only applies if they're incapacitated)
EDIT: it appears some airlines mandate at least two people in the cockpit at all times after the 2015 Germanwings incident.
I thought it was standard procedure to have a flight attendant in the cockpit during bathroom trips since the germanwings disaster to prevent exactly this, until I realized germanwings was after MH370.
It's airline dependent, not mandated. A lot of airlines have by now reverted back, allowing only one person in the cockpit.
Simon did an update earlier this year on the Germanwings accident. He states the official report is flawed. It's an interesting read, but also quite sad that such basic questions are not answered and thus far few seem to even care that they get answered.
I’m surprised the article claims there was nothing suspicious about the pilot. I recall that Captain Zaharie Shah had deleted data from his home pc flight simulator that showed a path flying through that same South Indian Ocean.
There was. New York magazine was the first to report this.
> New York has obtained a confidential document from the Malaysian police investigation into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 that shows that the plane's captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, conducted a simulated flight deep into the remote southern Indian Ocean less than a month before the plane vanished under uncannily similar circumstances.
I've read elsewhere that maybe the cops were finding bits of information (it was just fragment of files, they were not recovered fully) and the whole thing ("He's been planning to fly to the middle of the Indian Ocen!") is just wild speculation backed up with weak "evidence".
Anyway, it's Malaysian authorities. I've lived in the region...
But since we're not citing links, this is all gossip...
There is a lot of evidence to suggest the pilot did this intentionally, including the additional fuel and the topping up of the crew oxygen.
That still leaves the question of "why?". If he wanted to commit suicide he could have had an "accident" in a light aircraft instead of murdering 238 people, and the entire point of terrorism is for everyone to know it was you.
The secrecy was the point. For whatever reason, he didn't want to be remembered as suicidal and murderous.
Odd choice, now that it looks like he will be.
> There is a lot of evidence to suggest the pilot did this intentionally …
Maybe there’s no evidence for this
The locked cockpit door has been implicated in a number of pilot suicides: German Wings, Egypt Air, MH370 and possibly others.
Then there's Helios that crashed near Athens. The pressurisation failed and the cockpit oxygen cylinder had been left closed. The preflight check of the crew oxygen mask flow had not been done. By the time a cabin crew member with portable oxygen figured out how to get through the door, the fuel was about to run out.
Maybe the crew member could had landed the Helios plane, but by that time everyone on board were already dead. Still, kudos to the guy for fighting tooth and nail till the very end in this impossible situation.
> MH370 vanished in 2014.New search aims to find answers families desperately want
From Wikipedia:
> Aircraft type Boeing 777-2H6ER
Maybe they shall ask Boeing ?
I hope the plane gets found but we've basically known for a decade what happened. We just need to confirm it.
And that is that upon leaving the airspace of Malaysia into Thailand, the pilot changed course to take the plane over the Indian ocean to commit suicide.
It's likely the pilot depressurized the cabin as hypoxia would've rendered the crew and passengers so they were unliikely conscious for any of this. Whether this happened before or after the course change is unknown.
Given the minimal wreckage, it was likely a soft landing in the ocean rather than the pilot succumbing to a medical event. He almost certainly was conscious up until the ocean landing.
The pilot knew the range and likely chose a part of the Indian Ocean that was remote and deep so the wreckage wouldn't be found as the black boxes would reveal this was intentional and it seemed like he intended his family to get the settlement and life insurance.
It's unclear if the pilot was aware of the pinging that has narrowed down the location.
Nobody seems to have asked the US Navy about the crash. The Indian Ocean is a well-known hangout for boomers, and the USN listening posts should have heard the crash.
I think the theory is, even if they heard something, they would've shrugged (1) and said "I dunno", because they don't want to reveal to e.g. the Chinese about their listening capabilities.
The sentence is also true if you replace "they" with "the Chinese Navy" and "Chinese" with "Americans".
A sad situation all around.
I am curious, did changes take place due to this event ? Like real-time telemetry for airliners where their location is always available and saved on systems not on the plane.
I remember during the search the commentators said that was not done because Airlines did not want spend for that.
Under the assumption that it was a suicide, there have been changes that resulted from the similar Germanwings incident. Most airlines adopted a policy of requiring at least 2 people in the cockpit at all times.
Edited to add: There are also discussions underway on how to better handle pilots suffering from depression, since pilots are currently incentivized to never disclose mental health problems for fear of losing their livelihoods. Mentour Pilot talks about this too at the end of his Germanwings video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lotcRYD42e0
Including all medical issues. Anything that could hinder your performance could lead to a removal of medical clearance and that’s it for flying.
Many pilots I speak with use overseas doctors to continue flying.
How does this work if there are only 2 pilots? I’d imagine it’s not cost effective to have a 3rd pilot in cheap short flights.
Put a flight attendant in there?
Yes that's what they do.
Shortly after this there was a news article about a capacity or request for proposal (RFP) to allow remote takeover of aircraft controls locking out the pilot.
I tried to find it again but it fell off the internet.
