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Saruti. I'm Hannah. And welcome to

2:49

a very exciting episode of Red Handed that I've

2:52

been wanting to cover for years. Because

2:54

in this digital day and age, the

2:56

idea that a single person could disappear and

2:58

go off the grid forever feels near impossible.

3:01

We recently did the Muramuri case, and I think

3:04

there is that obsession with individual

3:06

people going missing because we're like, how? How is that

3:08

possible? How could this person just disappear off the face

3:10

of the earth and we have no idea? Hell,

3:13

even permanently deleting your internet search

3:15

history isn't even possible. Your

3:18

most personal and embarrassing Google searches will long

3:20

outlive you, I'm sorry to tell you. Whether

3:22

you think you've deleted them from your browser or whether you thought

3:24

you were really smart and used incognito mode

3:26

because there's a little man with a trench coat

3:28

and a microscope. And a,

3:30

what's not a microscope? Magnifying

3:33

glass. A little trench coat and a

3:35

magnifying glass convincing you that it's

3:37

safe. We're constantly being tracked

3:39

and it's all up there in the cloud

3:41

or whatever. So how could a

3:43

whole entire 175 ton, 160

3:48

million pound airplane just go missing midair?

3:51

And we're not talking about Amelia Earhart's impasto

3:53

case today. This month is

3:55

the 10 year anniversary of the strangest

3:57

mystery in aviation history. The

4:00

disappearance of flight an Ac seventy.

4:02

And or two hundred and thirty nine people

4:04

on board. So. Given. That.

4:07

It is anniversary this year we thought it was

4:09

time. That we took a little look. It

4:12

was almost midnight on the seventh of

4:14

March twenty fourteen when the red eye

4:16

flight and makes three seventy to Beijing

4:18

began. building. Tired business

4:21

people, tourists, exhausted parents, never bought

4:23

children marched forward step by step

4:25

in the queue at gate see

4:27

one to see three Aquada Lumpur.

4:29

International Airport. By. The

4:32

Time or two hundred and twenty seven passengers

4:34

and twelve crew members were on board. And.

4:36

Mh Three Seventy was set to take on. It.

4:39

Was twenty to one in the morning. The.

4:42

Journey from Malaysia to Beijing. Was a short

4:44

on. Expected to take no more than six hours.

4:47

Hence, The term red eye. It's. A

4:49

late night slight. But. Not long enough

4:51

passengers to get any meaningful sleep. I did

4:53

not know that I just thought read I

4:55

meant nighttime playing. They might have thought

4:57

that assist a red I can. The

5:00

eyes of the rest is a sleep and then you

5:02

wake up and in horrible coffee that they give you.

5:04

Honestly, I have left number one the last month.

5:07

When. I'm getting off the plane. Do Not take

5:09

the coffee that like if you because all that's

5:11

happened mean the past is a taken the coffee

5:13

that they can member of thinking mmm and I

5:15

get off and an upstanding and security and I

5:17

looked incredibly shifty but it because I'm tired and

5:19

the coffee. Has made me agitates and

5:21

then Security Alliance. What's wrong

5:23

with this girl? And your passport doesn't?

5:26

am I bought a subtler. I

5:28

have looked into it though I will have

5:30

it replaced with for. A secret

5:32

thing at the Okay, well good business.

5:34

The stress. Anyway,

5:37

Within twenty minutes of take off, the Boeing

5:39

Seven Seven Seven. Reached. It's

5:41

cruising altitude a thirty five

5:43

thousand feet. Everything

5:45

was going smoothly. The passengers were

5:47

settled in. People. Signs with hundred.

5:50

And captaincy the serving the insight

5:52

meals. Twenty minutes after

5:54

this. Mhc seventeen left Malaysian

5:56

Sp. And as a routine.

5:59

The point. Philip told Air Traffic Control, good

6:02

night, Malaysia 370. His

6:05

voice sounded calm, but everything

6:07

that happened in the following 15 minutes

6:09

after this message was broadcast was

6:11

anything but. The

6:13

Boeing 777 and all

6:16

239 people on board vanished

6:18

from the radar streams of both

6:20

Malaysian and Vietnamese air

6:23

traffic controllers, who were meant

6:25

to register MH370's entry into their

6:27

jurisdiction. At

6:30

6.30am, the scheduled landing time, flight

6:33

MH370 delayed appeared on the message

6:35

boards in Beijing airport. The

6:38

families and friends of the 227 passengers

6:41

stood waiting for their loved ones at

6:43

arrivals, with no idea that

6:45

flight MH370 wasn't delayed. It

6:50

was missing. And what awaited

6:52

them was an ordeal that

6:54

hasn't ended to this day, 10 years

6:57

on, and possibly never

7:00

will. It was

7:02

only an hour after the plane should

7:04

have landed at 7.30am that Malaysia Airlines

7:06

issued a statement that they had

7:09

no idea where flight MH370 was.

7:14

And at this statement, the world's

7:16

collective is pricked. And

7:18

the questions began to swell. Had

7:21

the flight been hijacked? Did the pilot

7:23

crash it in some sort of murder-ciblically? Did

7:26

the aircraft suddenly explode and sink into the

7:28

deepest darkest depths of the South China Sea?

7:30

Did aliens abduct it? Did it

7:32

fly into a wormhole and end up in another

7:35

dimension and waste years of everybody's

7:37

life watching lost? All

7:40

the classic. Did the Russians do

7:42

it? Come on, how much

7:44

of your life was wasted by watching lost? Significant

7:47

amount. Yeah, if I backed back all the

7:49

time I spent watching lost,

7:52

probably my high school career. If

7:55

the number of hours we spent watching

7:57

lost were in tins of beans it

7:59

could reach from here to the

8:02

moon and back. Fuck

8:04

you Lost. So I will say I've

8:07

taken a chance and

8:09

the producers of Lost bring us a

8:11

new sci-fi horror show that this

8:14

weekend I did watch. It's called

8:16

From, like

8:18

F-R-O-M and it is

8:20

on Now TV in the UK and

8:23

I have binge watched. Two

8:26

seasons are the final episode of season two. Season

8:28

three is currently filming and I

8:31

have already enjoyed it. But what I enjoy the

8:33

most is that it's a similar premise. The premise

8:35

is that it's a small town somewhere in Bump,

8:37

Up, Nowhere US that maybe exists, maybe doesn't, but

8:39

it's basically the idea that people that drive through

8:42

it get stuck there and they can't leave. And

8:44

monsters come out of the woods at night.

8:46

Sound shit, it's actually pretty good. Give

8:49

it a chance. I

8:51

can't be held responsible for what happens

8:53

in the ending. Producers have lost later.

8:56

But I do enjoy that pretty much in

8:58

episode one they're like, could we all be dead?

9:01

Could we just be trapped in this?

9:21

Oh, yes, you do speak very highly of it. I

9:23

think it is so underrated. Yeah. Christian

9:26

Chenoweth's in it. Who's that? I'm

9:32

not even gonna bother. But yes,

9:34

when you finish that, check out From.

9:36

Okay, I will. I think you will enjoy it. Anyway,

9:39

where were we? So basically, did the aliens do

9:41

it? Did they end up in Lost? Did

9:43

the Russians do it? Now, these are

9:45

all theories and questions that have been

9:47

discussed over the past 10 years

9:49

since MH370 went missing. Some

9:52

more seriously than others. But

9:55

still today, the world is

9:58

at a loss for what actually happened. speculation

10:02

is all we have. The

10:04

first theory to go out of

10:06

the window was that an explosion

10:08

had caused MH370's comm system to

10:10

turn off, which immediately ruled

10:12

out a bomb or an accidental

10:14

catastrophic failure, because within a

10:17

week of the aircraft vanishing, the

10:19

first solid lead emerged. Up

10:22

until this point, the last known

10:24

communication with the plane took place

10:26

at 1.20am over the South China

10:28

Sea as it left Malaysia's airspace

10:31

and entered Vietnam. Good

10:33

night, Malaysia 370 were the last

10:35

words heard from the pilot. Based

10:38

on this, search efforts were primarily focused

10:40

in that area of the South China

10:42

Sea. But then came the

10:45

revelation that military radar had picked

10:47

up on an unknown aircraft which

10:50

may have been MH370.

10:53

And if it was MH370,

10:56

then the radar was indicating that the

10:58

aircraft had flown thousands of miles off

11:00

course and had made a U-turn back

11:03

over the Malaysian Peninsula. And

11:07

then, on 15 March, the Prime Minister

11:09

of Malaysia held a press conference and

11:11

confirmed that this was indeed the

11:13

case, thus immediately ruling

11:15

out the theory that the

11:17

aircraft had exploded at 1.20am

11:19

and giving rise to a

11:21

host of more sinister theories.

11:24

Like hijacking. Yeah,

11:26

because if it's not been blown to smithereens, something

11:29

else is going on. But

11:31

who? And why? Well, the

11:33

media went wild with speculation immediately

11:36

after Malaysia Airlines released some very

11:38

troubling discoveries about

11:40

a passenger manifest. There

11:42

were a total of 14 different nationalities on

11:44

board, mainly Chinese. But

11:47

on closer inspection, it was found

11:50

that two of the passengers were not who

11:52

they claimed to be. Italian

11:54

national, Luigi Moraldi, was watching the

11:56

news on TV when he saw

11:58

his name Listed among

12:00

the passengers. On Mh Three

12:03

seventy. As was Austrian

12:05

born Christian Kozel. Now.

12:07

Luigi possible have been stolen while he was

12:09

on holiday in Asia six months earlier. And.

12:12

Christian had had his passport stolen

12:14

two years before and Thailand. And

12:17

now to Iranian nationals, nineteen

12:19

year old Perea North Mohammed.

12:22

And twenty nine year old Mohammad

12:24

Reza Delva had bought these passports

12:26

in Thailand and somehow managed to

12:29

get on board Mh Three Seventy

12:31

using those possible. The

12:33

Media when? what? Iranian fake

12:35

passports the surely had. To be

12:38

Terrorism. And I do think

12:40

that was a very plausible line

12:42

of investigation. But. It

12:45

did turn out that the pair had no

12:47

obvious history or links the terror organizations. And

12:50

it was concluded by Interpol after

12:52

a lengthy investigation into this. That.

12:54

While they would definitely illegally traveling

12:56

and a fake passports. To reach Europe.

12:59

They probably hadn't been connected to a

13:01

plot to blow up. Of

13:04

the the plane hadn't blown up. And if you

13:06

hijacker. You're. Going to tell

13:08

people because yeah, if it's a terror

13:10

attack committed by to Iranians using fake

13:12

passports, a secret one isn't very useful

13:15

for making a political point. We'd.

13:18

Have known if it was a terror attack? Surely

13:20

yeah. Like name was Sarah attack in the history

13:22

of the world where they haven't been like that

13:24

with us. By the way, please can we have

13:26

what we want? It's incredibly pointless. So I

13:28

think basically the investigators or. They

13:30

can do it methodically, go through every possibility.

13:32

It didn't explode even though it looks like

13:34

it could have been terrorism. because these arrangements

13:36

on board. It. Probably wasn't because my be

13:38

claimed as. Luckily

13:42

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13:44

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then placed all eyes on the two pilots of

15:47

MH370. And

15:49

the media started a smear campaign against

15:52

both of them long before the

15:54

investigation had even begun. The

15:56

co-pilot was Farik Abdul Hamid, an outstanding pilot.

15:59

by all accounts, who'd logged over 2,763 hours

16:01

of flight time. And that flight was a

16:06

significant one for Farik, because

16:08

it was going to be his final

16:10

supervised flight on a Boeing 777. Nothing

16:14

about Farik or his life suggested that

16:17

he was suicidal or had any terrorist

16:19

motivations. He was happily engaged

16:21

to another pilot, and his colleagues described

16:23

him as conscientious and respectable. Farik

16:26

even coached a five-a-side youth football team.

16:29

Not to mention the fact that Farik

16:31

lacked the experience and knowledge required to

16:33

pull off such a sophisticated hijacking, which

16:35

then put the spotlight on the captain

16:37

of the MH370, a

16:39

53-year-old, Zahaari Ahmad Shah.

16:41

Tabloids made all sorts of claims about him.

16:44

His wife and kids had left him, his diary

16:46

was blank after February 8, 2014, and he had distant

16:50

relatives in Pakistan, implying therefore that

16:52

he must have had links to

16:55

terrorism. The media also honed in

16:57

on a theory that Zahaari was upset

16:59

about the fact that the leader of Malaysia's

17:01

People's Justice Party had been sent to jail

17:04

the day before the plane vanished. Both

17:07

of the pilots' homes were raided and

17:09

searched. Nothing suspicious was found

17:11

in Farik's home. But in

17:13

Zahaari's house, police found a

17:16

high-tech flight simulator and

17:18

discovered that he'd also recently deleted some

17:20

phones. The FBI managed to

17:22

recover these and found that he'd been

17:24

practicing landing a Boeing 777 in Sri Lanka,

17:28

India, the Maldives, and a

17:30

US military base in Diego

17:32

Garcia. But just two

17:34

weeks later, Malaysian authorities announced that there

17:36

was nothing incriminating about any of it.

17:39

And similar to his co-pilot, on

17:41

the surface, Zahaari's life really didn't

17:43

point to anything that suggested that

17:45

he had suicidal or any sort

17:48

of fanatical ideas. He was

17:50

a loving grandfather, a keen cook,

17:53

a hobbyist model-builder, and a DIY

17:55

enthusiast who was well-liked by all

17:57

of his flying students. Yes,

17:59

he had some Political view. I'm

18:01

a happy to debate with anybody you want it. It. And

18:03

yes, he had a flight simulator, a home. But

18:06

all of his colleagues insisted. This

18:08

a hurry lived for quite food,

18:11

family and fly. What?

18:13

Do you live for Hannah? Move God for

18:15

the three s. Monday.

18:19

Mornings not the time to ask me. That's what. I'll

18:25

get back. She would have got that Friday feeling

18:27

tired of that Friday feel like this is. How.

18:33

Is anybody on that flight? Was capable of

18:35

pulling off what happened to Mh. Three Seventy's a

18:38

har. He was the best bet. He'd been

18:40

a pilot since nineteen eighty one. Had

18:42

over eighteen thousand hours of flying

18:44

experience, And was one of the

18:46

best pilots in the country. Which.

18:48

Is why when authorities concluded our

18:51

investigation after three months. They.

18:53

Ruled out everybody. On board Mh Three

18:55

seventy as a suspect. Sept

18:58

Safari. And we will

19:00

conduct. Now.

19:02

We need to point out. That. There is

19:04

nothing clear cut about. So.

19:08

Much misinformation was coming from the

19:10

press, the airline, and even the

19:13

Malaysian authorities. Malaysian Airlines were

19:15

keen to do as much damage

19:17

control as possible. To keep the

19:19

stock prices from tank. Said. They

19:21

did their best to brush off any suggestion. That.

19:23

One of their pilots could have been responsible.

19:26

Now a lot of people do say that this

19:28

is because Malaysian Airlines is now a state

19:30

owned ally, so Malaysia seems to have been very

19:33

keen to do as much damage. Control as

19:35

possible because it's intimately linked

19:38

to the states. Though.

19:41

That doesn't get them off the hook and

19:43

time. Because. It was revealed

19:45

later. That. Malaysia had been notified.

19:47

About and Macys having gone off

19:50

course in a westwood direction on

19:52

the day the plane. Went missing.

19:55

Of whatever reason, They. Can't this

19:57

information to themselves for almost a week? Focus

20:00

the search efforts in the South

20:02

China Sea. Knowing full well that

20:04

the plane wasn't there, And there

20:06

was no way the plague. Then

20:09

came some new, profound revelations. About

20:12

the actual route the Mh to

20:14

seventy had taken. Once.

20:16

The aircraft had left the area monitored by

20:19

the military radar. He continued

20:21

to passively communicate with a

20:23

satellite above the Indian Ocean.

20:26

This satellite was run by a British

20:28

company could Inmarsat. Amazon. Or

20:30

in the business of providing satellite communication,

20:32

the planes will not be on the

20:35

range of ground wrote officer. What?

20:37

The satellite does. Is send

20:39

what's known as a pink to the

20:41

aircraft once every hour to see if

20:44

it automatically response which is called a

20:46

hunch. And after combing

20:48

through the enormous amounts of data,

20:51

Amazon. Let. That. Nic

20:53

seventy. Had our She

20:55

responded for up to six hours.

20:57

After it was believed to have them. However,

21:00

this states have received from Mh

21:02

three seventy by a massage was

21:04

never intended to be used to

21:06

track the location of a plane.

21:09

And and never been done before. All

21:11

that data can show us the distance the

21:14

plane was from the satellite at the time

21:16

of a handshake occurring. But it

21:18

was possible to use this information to

21:20

properly calculate. The. Path. In

21:23

the simplest terms, this was done by

21:25

utilizing the.perfect. Is the.perfect

21:28

Why Motorbikes sounds quieter when

21:30

not going away from you.

21:33

Yeah. I learned that watching

21:35

Malcolm in the middle. Anyway,

21:38

Please. Anyone. Based

21:40

on the difference in speed, the signal came

21:42

from the aircraft to the satellite at. Each

21:44

point. Similar. To how the

21:46

whistle from a train gets louder. Approaches Eve

21:49

or Motorbike as I just. And

21:51

tickets fainter as a get farther away. So.

21:54

if you're the satellite and the train

21:56

is mh three seventy and the whistle

21:58

sound of the train is ping. With

22:01

data from each of the seven pings

22:03

received and some very complex mathematical equations,

22:05

it was possible to determine

22:07

where MH370 was at the

22:09

time of each ping. On

22:12

the 24th of March, the 16

22:14

days after the flight vanished, the

22:16

Prime Minister of Malaysia held a press conference.

22:19

He announced that INMASAT had concluded that MH370

22:22

flew south after

22:25

passing over the Malaysian Peninsula. This

22:27

was not what anybody wanted to hear.

22:30

If MH370 had gone north, then

22:33

it would have been over land and there

22:35

would have been a higher likelihood of survivors.

22:38

But having gone south, it only

22:40

left the possibility that MH370 had crashed

22:44

into the southern Indian Ocean, which

22:46

would make the survival rate likely zero.

22:50

The plane probably flew until all the fuel

22:52

had been exhausted, and since there was

22:54

only enough to keep it flying for seven and a

22:56

half hours following takeoff, after its

22:58

changing course, it couldn't have gone much

23:00

further than the Indian Ocean. So

23:02

it's a good bet that that's where it ended up. And

23:05

this theory added up with the last time

23:07

that the aircraft pinged in MH370 which was

23:10

around 8.20am, because the

23:13

next attempt, the following hour

23:15

at 9.15am, the handshake failed.

23:18

Following this announcement by the Prime Minister, the

23:20

family and friends of the passengers and the

23:22

crew of MH370 lost

23:25

all hope that they'd ever see their loved

23:27

ones again. Some expressed

23:29

their grief in very understandable

23:31

emotional breakdowns. Others

23:34

did so in equally understandable displays of

23:36

anger and suspicion. Many believed that

23:38

the Malaysian authorities were not telling them

23:40

everything that they knew. 239 people

23:44

had just suddenly been declared

23:46

dead based on one mathematical

23:49

calculation with absolutely no physical

23:51

evidence. After all,

23:54

there were no bodies, and there was no sign

23:56

of any wreckage. It was a very hard and

23:58

bizarre pill to swallow. And the

24:00

world wanted answers. Know.

24:02

Like we said earlier, the majority of

24:04

the passengers on board had been Chinese.

24:07

And within a day of this news that

24:09

everybody was gonna be declared dead. The.

24:11

Malaysian embassy in Beijing, surrounded

24:13

by. Angry. Protests. Pressure

24:16

to get to the bottom of things with him.

24:19

Really didn't help that millions of

24:21

dollars have been wasted scouring around

24:23

one. Point: Eight million square miles

24:25

in the wrong location because Malaysia

24:27

had an admitted to knowing that

24:30

I made three seventy had gone.

24:33

But within more sets new

24:35

information, That. New search area was

24:37

now the Southern Indian Ocean. About

24:40

eighteen hundred kilometers of the Western

24:42

Australian. The. Search

24:44

effort is comprised of forty. Three ships

24:46

and fifty eight aircraft and

24:49

fourteen different country. Larger

24:52

than the continental United States. And

24:54

as one Australian pay that who's involved in the as

24:56

put it. Were. Not looking for a needle

24:59

in a haystack. With. The Looking for the

25:01

haystack. Rod. What's. Happening

25:03

again from. Months

25:05

passed as Australian that search teams narrow down

25:07

the search area to one hundred and twenty.

25:10

Thousand square kilometers of sea

25:12

floor. As for. Still,

25:16

they didn't find a single clue as to

25:18

where the aircraft or it's passengers were. Then

25:21

just when it seems like things couldn't

25:23

get any worse for Malaysian Airlines. They

25:26

did. On the seventeenth

25:28

of July, twenty Four Teams Malaysian Airlines

25:30

Flight seventeen was making. It's way from

25:32

Amsterdam to Kuala. Lumpur. The

25:34

aircraft. Vanished. From all

25:37

radar systems as it was flying

25:39

over Eastern Ukraine, About thirty

25:41

one miles. From the Russian border. However,

25:44

unlike I makes three seventy. It

25:46

wasn't a mystery as to what happened to that

25:48

plane. That Boeing Seven seven

25:51

seven had Been Blown. To pieces

25:53

mid air. And. The wreckage

25:55

had fallen out of the don't he asked

25:57

obe region of Ukraine. killing all

26:00

283 passengers and 15 members of crew on board. Intelligence

26:05

services quickly figured out that the

26:07

aircraft had been hit by a

26:09

surface-to-air missile fired by

26:11

a pro-Russia separatist group. The

26:13

Russian government of course denied any responsibility

26:16

but in November 2022 a Dutch

26:19

court ruled otherwise. They announced

26:21

that Russia had had full control over

26:24

the separatist forces fighting in Ukraine at

26:26

the time and after a trial

26:28

in absentia, two Russians, Igor

26:30

Gherkin and Sergei Dublinsky and

26:33

a Ukrainian separatist, Leonard Kachenko

26:35

were all found guilty of murdering the

26:37

298 passengers. As far

26:41

as we know all three men are still at large in

26:43

Russia and will likely never serve

26:45

their sentences. Which makes the

26:47

case of MH370 our story today,

26:50

the second deadliest incident involving a Boeing

26:52

777. But

26:56

the search for MH370 held

26:58

its place as the most

27:00

expensive search in aviation history,

27:03

estimated at a total cost of $155 million. Yet to this very

27:08

day the majority of the aircraft has

27:10

never been found. And we say

27:12

majority because in July 2015 a small

27:15

section of the wing called

27:17

a flaperon which is made up.

27:20

That sounds incredibly fake. It sounds

27:22

like when you watch those anti-aging

27:24

cream adverts and they use

27:27

her clearance to confuse you.

27:29

Anticresium, now filled with anticresium to

27:31

put on your face to anti

27:33

your creases. So

27:36

the made up flaperon left for

27:38

Lange was discovered by members of

27:40

the public on Reunion Island, 170 kilometres

27:43

from Mauritius or thereabouts.

27:45

I actually met a lovely

27:47

couple from Reunion Island when I was travelling. They

27:50

were like oh you should come stay with us, you should

27:52

come stay with us. And obviously we never did. But very

27:54

nice couple and the guy swam every single day and he

27:56

was like I did every single day back home it's great

27:58

it's the only way to start your day. I go

28:00

to Gudry in Yene Island, the most

28:02

dangerous place for shark attack on

28:05

the planet. And I was like, what the

28:07

fuck? And he's like, yes, fine. They're not

28:09

going to fight you. And

28:11

I'm like, they definitely will. They definitely

28:13

do. But yeah, scary time. Probably

28:15

why it didn't go, even though I'm fascinated. So

28:20

since that flaperon was found in

28:22

the shark's capital of the world,

28:24

about 40 small pieces

28:27

of MH370 have been located by

28:29

locals on the coast of South

28:31

Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar and several small

28:34

islands. But nothing

28:36

else. The official government-led search

28:38

for the aircraft was abandoned in 2017.

28:42

The following year, a private US

28:45

marine company, Ocean Infinity, resumed

28:47

the search, based on drift

28:50

data from the debris found. But

28:53

they too gave up just after a year of no

28:55

results. However, just

28:58

last year, the Wall Street Journal

29:00

published an article claiming that the location of

29:02

the crash site could be determined.

29:05

Scientists believe that they can do this by

29:07

studying the barnacles found on the debris of

29:09

MH370. Apparently,

29:12

by looking at how the shells have formed

29:14

on the barnacles, scientists can figure out the

29:16

temperatures of the sea where they've come from.

29:19

That's so fucking cool. I was going to say how

29:21

incredibly boring they must be to have at parties.

29:26

Tell me more about the barnacle shell, Dave. Yeah,

29:29

you don't want to hang out with them, they look like you barbecue. But

29:32

if your plane goes down, or your boat

29:34

goes missing, tell me all about the barnacles. So,

29:39

these very ocean detectives,

29:42

not boring scientists, these

29:46

scintillating party guests, were able to plot a

29:48

drift route. Hopefully, leading back

29:50

to the original crash site. And

29:53

it does sound like a long shot. But

29:55

there really don't seem to be many other options at this stage.

30:00

has said that they want to resume their search

30:02

efforts in 2024, pending authorization from

30:04

the Malaysian government. Until then,

30:07

we likely won't get any more

30:09

answers. So

30:11

in the years since MH370's

30:13

tragic disappearance, like in

30:15

the aftermath of any major catastrophe with

30:17

no clear explanation, conspiracy theorists

30:19

have of course run and run. Basically

30:22

everything, the

30:24

moment MH370 vanished from air

30:27

traffic control radars is up

30:29

for debate. And theories have

30:31

ranged from, like we said, UFO abduction.

30:33

The idea that the plane flew through a

30:35

wormhole, all Russian hijacking, and even claims that

30:38

the US shot it down, have

30:40

circulated. Now if we were to

30:42

run through all of these theories, this episode

30:44

would be as long as the entire

30:46

Lost Saga, and you would hate

30:48

us just as much. So we've decided

30:50

to run through what we believe is

30:52

the most likely scenario. It

30:54

is also the theory believed by the majority

30:57

of investigators and experts in the field of

30:59

aviation today. But we should

31:01

preface this by reminding you all that

31:03

this is just of course a theory, and

31:06

therefore very speculative with no solid evidence

31:09

whatsoever. It's simply the theory

31:11

that we believe follows Occam's razor, and

31:14

it is the one that is most supported by

31:16

the existing evidence, and requires the

31:18

least number of assumptions to be made.

31:21

The pilot did it. First

31:24

of all, Sahari Ahmad Shah was going

31:26

through a very rough time in his

31:28

personal life, and many who

31:30

knew him believed that he was clinically

31:32

depressed. His wife had left him, and

31:35

although he still spoke to his kids, they were

31:37

adults living lives of their own. Sahari

31:39

had even told some of his friends that he spent

31:41

much of his free time just pacing around his house

31:43

waiting for his next flight, and

31:45

when he wasn't pacing, Sahari was using his

31:48

home flight simulator. That's how you

31:50

know he got a divorce, because he was just like,

31:52

I'm going to buy a massive flight simulator and

31:54

put it in our house. She

31:56

wouldn't have allowed that. He's like, now I can do

31:58

it. Live the bachelor part of my dream. When

32:01

the Malaysian government finally released their lengthy

32:03

report on the investigation into MH370's disappearance,

32:07

it seems that they left out one

32:09

critical detail. In

32:11

2016, some confidential documents were

32:13

leaked from the Malaysian authorities'

32:15

investigation, revealing the following. One

32:19

month before the aircraft vanished, the

32:22

Hari had carried out a simulated flight

32:24

way out into the Southern

32:27

Indian Ocean, and he

32:30

used a fairly similar route to the one

32:32

that MH370 is believed to have taken, although

32:35

his simulated flight ended about 900 miles

32:38

away from the actual search area. But

32:40

the very fact that we now

32:42

know that the Malaysian government deliberately

32:44

withheld this information from their report

32:46

should make us all very suspicious. Yes,

32:49

the Hari was by many accounts a very

32:51

friendly and very helpful family man who made

32:54

YouTube videos about home DIY and love

32:56

to cook. But that doesn't mean

32:58

much. Pilots carrying out

33:00

murder suicides is not unheard of. Just

33:02

a year after MH370, the co-pilot

33:05

of German wing flight 9525 deliberately

33:07

crashed the plane

33:09

into a mountain in France, killing all 150 people

33:11

on board. That

33:13

is absolutely terrifying. I

33:16

suffered a tweet the other day. I'm not a nervous flier.

33:18

It's this tweet that was like,

33:21

oh it's absolutely fine, just a million things have to

33:23

go right at once for this to stay in the air. We

33:27

couldn't be allowed to do it. I don't think we should

33:30

be allowed. I mean, again, I'm

33:32

also not a nervous flier and there is all

33:34

the stats about like, oh you know, just walking down

33:36

the street or driving your car is a lot more dangerous than

33:39

crashing out of a plane. But I'm like, when

33:41

it happens, you're dead. There's

33:43

no chance. So

33:46

now let's be party poopers and get

33:48

into the scenario that we think is

33:51

the most likely. This

33:53

version of events is incredibly told in

33:55

an amazing YouTube documentary by Green.Aviation and

33:57

we really do suggest that you guys.

34:00

go and have a look at it because it blows

34:03

Netflix's shambolic documentary The Plane That

34:05

Disappeared out of the water. But

34:08

we will come back to that later on. So for now,

34:11

here we go. And remember that

34:13

this is just a theory but it is the best

34:15

one that we have, we think. And you will see

34:17

why, but it is a theory all the same. We're

34:20

going to explain it as

34:22

if it actually happened to connect

34:24

the evidence. Yeah, like any other

34:27

way to explain this makes no sense. We have to

34:29

talk you through it as if this is exactly what

34:31

happened, just so we can point to the evidence that

34:33

matches. And

34:57

so much more. We'll hope you join us for this

34:59

surprisingly fun journey full of strange characters,

35:22

secretive companies, and a whole world of stuff

35:25

they really don't want you to know. So

35:27

subscribe to Just So You Know wherever you get your

35:29

podcasts and look for our new episodes every Thursday. Just

35:32

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reserve your spot. That's

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www.fmc.edu. So

36:26

on the 8th of March 2014, 53-year-old Captain Zahari Shah and his 27-year-old co-pilot

36:29

Fareeq Abdul-Hamid

36:36

were in the cockpit of MH370, ready

36:39

to make the routine flight to Beijing.

36:42

Malaysian Airlines runs this flight twice

36:44

a day, every day. So

36:47

routine is definitely the word. Fareeq

36:50

was excited as, like we said earlier, this was

36:52

his final supervised flight of a Boeing 777, after

36:56

which he'd be cleared to become a main

36:58

pilot. Zahari, however,

37:00

had no intention of going to Beijing.

37:03

A 40-minute past midnight, Zahari

37:05

taxied down the runway and took off, and

37:08

the fates of the 238 people on board were sealed. As

37:13

usual, MH370 flew northeast, over

37:15

the Malaysian Peninsula, and over

37:17

the South China Sea. 20

37:20

minutes later, Zahari reached a cruising altitude of 35,000

37:22

feet and

37:24

notified air traffic control that all was well. Zahari

37:27

was then given permission to take a shortcut

37:30

to a waypoint called Igari. Waypoints

37:33

are specific geographical locations used

37:35

as points of reference in

37:37

aviation navigation, and Igari

37:39

is one of the few waypoints in the world

37:41

that lies on the borders of five different airspaces

37:44

– Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam,

37:46

Cambodia and Singapore. At

37:49

1.19am, as Zahari approached Igari,

37:51

leaving Malaysian airspace behind, he

37:54

uttered the now infamous words, Good

37:56

night, Malaysian 370. This

38:00

was the last verbal communication made between MH370

38:02

and the ground. And

38:06

this is where the speculative scenario begins.

38:09

Zahari gets his co-pilot out of the way by asking him

38:11

to go and make a cup of coffee. And

38:13

when he obediently does so, Zahari locks the

38:16

cockpit door and gets ready to

38:18

do something David Blaine could only dream of.

38:21

He was about to make a hundred

38:23

and seventy-five tonne aeroplane disappear.

38:27

Soon after MH370 reached Zahari,

38:29

the pilots should have sent Vietnamese

38:31

air traffic control a message like

38:34

this. Ho Chi Minh control,

38:36

Malaysia 370, flight level 350, good morning.

38:41

That would have been standard protocol. But

38:43

they didn't do this. And

38:46

Vietnamese air traffic controllers didn't

38:48

notice either. They were

38:50

busy dealing with the planes already in their

38:52

airspace. They weren't expecting MH370

38:55

for another few minutes. And

38:57

this moment of limbo was

38:59

the perfect moment for Zahari to do what he

39:02

was about to do next. Ninety

39:05

seconds after MH370 reached

39:07

a gary, Zahari turned off

39:09

the plane's transponder. That's

39:11

the communication system between MH370 and

39:13

air traffic control. The switch

39:15

for the transponder is as simple as a

39:17

knob on a car radio. It's

39:20

located between the pilot's seats. The

39:22

pilots, however, are not even taught how to

39:24

turn this off in training because there isn't

39:26

a single good reason that they would ever

39:28

need to. Why is it there? There

39:33

are a lot of things about planes, I don't understand.

39:35

Do you remember being able to go into the cockpit when

39:37

you were a kid? Oh my God. We lived in such

39:40

a simple little hot spot pre-9-11.

39:44

Thanks for ruining it for all the kids of today.

39:46

Yeah. Because yes, absolutely. I

39:48

remember we used to fly every single

39:50

summer to India every single year for

39:53

six weeks. And every single time we'd

39:55

fly British Airways and they would come and get you and they'd

39:57

be like, do you want to come sit in the cockpit? you'd

40:00

like wear a little captain's hat and you'd look at

40:02

everything and the captain would be like, oh, sorry, do

40:04

you want to be a pilot when you grow up,

40:06

blah, blah, blah. And then you'd go back to your

40:08

desk and listen to Andy Peters, talk on VA radio

40:10

and colour in your little thing with your crayons. Can

40:13

you imagine now, Kid

40:16

approaches cockpit to shop, by

40:18

air marshals. I'm

40:21

almost certain that

40:23

I was on a plane on

40:25

Christmas Eve and the

40:27

pilot like dipped the plane and

40:29

said that Santa was on the

40:32

room. Oh my God. I know. Fuck

40:35

it out. Yes, I just went,

40:37

oh, we've got a visitor. Jesus

40:41

Christ. A

40:44

simpler time. So if

40:46

he turned the transponder off, it

40:49

was in that second that MH370

40:51

vanished from the radar screens of air traffic

40:53

controllers in Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia.

40:56

But also in that second,

40:58

Zahaari dropped a breadcrumb that wouldn't be

41:01

found for years. As

41:03

the host of Green Dot Aviation explains, the

41:06

dial for the transponder on a Boeing 777 has three settings.

41:10

One fully on, which transmits all

41:12

the plane's information regarding its altitude and

41:14

position, etc. Two altitude

41:17

off, which transmits everything but

41:19

the plane's altitude. And then

41:21

three fully off. And

41:23

as Zahaari turned the dial to fully

41:25

off, it passed the

41:28

altitude off selection. And

41:30

in that microsecond, the plane's

41:32

position, but not its altitude,

41:35

were transmitted to the ground. If

41:37

the transponder was turned off due

41:39

to an electronic catastrophe, this

41:42

wouldn't have happened. It would

41:45

only have happened if the transponder had

41:47

been turned off manually.

41:52

And this is why people who understand aviation and

41:55

who are creating videos and content

41:57

like Green Dot Aviation are so

41:59

helpful. because we don't understand things. We have

42:01

to take the expert's guidance on this, but

42:04

that is fascinating. The idea that

42:06

only by turning it manually through those selections,

42:08

it would have created that breadcrumb. That's

42:11

so interesting. And also, I

42:13

know we've said that they're not trained on how

42:15

to turn it off. It seems pretty easy.

42:17

Yeah, it's just a lot. They're

42:20

like, it's just first day of flight school. First

42:22

day of pilot school. That's the transponder button. Don't

42:24

touch that. In fact, I'm just going to put

42:26

a little sticker. Not touch. Not

42:29

for you. But yeah, it's really interesting.

42:31

And the only way it could have disappeared from the

42:33

radars of air traffic control on the ground is if

42:35

he had turned it off. And by

42:37

turning it off manually, he goes past that

42:39

selection, which gives that breadcrumb. Really, really interesting.

42:42

So at this point, let's assume Farik is

42:44

still busy fixing the cups of coffee

42:46

for himself and Zahari. And again, we

42:48

are speculating here, would a

42:50

copilot go and make coffee or do

42:53

they have an air steward that does that for them? Is

42:56

he in the loo? We don't know, but we have

42:58

to assume that for some reason he is missing the

43:00

cop. The copilot isn't in the cockpit. So

43:02

also at this point, although air traffic

43:05

controllers now couldn't see MH370 on their

43:07

screen, the airline

43:09

still knew where the plane was. And

43:11

this is because of something called a

43:13

CARS. Now, CARS

43:15

is an acronym that stands

43:17

for Aircraft Communication Addressing and

43:20

Reporting System. It automatically

43:22

sends technical information about the

43:24

aircraft every 30 minutes via

43:26

satellite to Boeing, Rolls-Royce

43:29

and the airline, which in this case

43:31

was Malaysian Airlines. This technical

43:34

information includes the amount of fuel left

43:36

and the plane's position on its

43:39

flight rig. And there are two ways

43:41

to turn a CARS off. The first

43:43

is the simplest, which is to flick the switch. But

43:46

doing so would definitely notify the ground that

43:48

a CARS was being turned off, which

43:50

would, no doubt, send up some sort of red flag.

43:53

The second way is to literally pull

43:56

the plug on the engine's electrical

43:58

generator so that a CARS is in the cockpit. The

44:00

latter is what Zahari would have had to do, and

44:03

so just like that the plane

44:05

would have vanished, and Zahari could

44:07

have done this in a matter of

44:09

minutes. As a pilot of over 30 years with again 18,000

44:11

hours of flying experience, he was

44:14

certainly capable

44:16

of it. Zahari's next problem

44:18

came in the form

44:20

of the 238 people behind him on the plane.

44:25

At 35,000 feet the air pressure is one

44:27

quarter of that at sea level, which means there's also

44:32

only one quarter of the oxygen in the air as there

44:35

would be at sea level. The reason

44:37

we can breathe on board airplanes at 35,000 feet

44:39

is because the plane has machinery which

44:42

compresses the outside air, warms it up and

44:44

pumps it in. If that

44:46

didn't happen, exposure to the outside thin air

44:48

would result in a deadly condition known

44:50

as hypoxia. All

44:52

Zahari needed to do was let out

44:54

the compressed, safe-to-breathe air out of the

44:57

plane and pump the thin air

44:59

in. To do that, he

45:01

needed to open two outflow valves underneath

45:03

the Boeing 777, which is possible

45:07

from the cockpit. So,

45:09

Zahari fitted himself with an oxygen mask

45:12

next to his seat and flicked the

45:14

switches, stopping the engines pumping compressed air

45:16

into the plane. Then

45:19

he changed the setting on the cabin's

45:21

air pressure control to manual, allowing him

45:23

to control the airflow inside the plane.

45:27

Zahari then opened the two outflow valves.

45:30

And that was the point of no return.

45:33

A gust of cold, thin air would have swept

45:35

through the passenger's cabins, oxygen masks

45:37

would have dropped from the ceilings and

45:39

hypoxia would have started to set in. At

45:42

this moment, Zahari would have made his

45:44

extreme U-turn by banking the plane left

45:47

as much as possible. Anybody

45:49

not in their seats would have been sent flying to

45:51

the left side of the aircraft as

45:53

they slowly fell unconscious from the lack of oxygen.

45:57

What Zahari was trying to do by turning

45:59

so hard was to avoid the

46:01

airspace of Thailand. He

46:03

knew they wouldn't see him on the air

46:05

traffic control radar, but there was a

46:08

chance that he'd be spotted by primary

46:10

radar. Now primary radar is

46:12

the most fundamental kind of radar, which

46:15

involves a radar dish that emits signals into

46:17

the sky and picks up what sounds like.

46:20

It wouldn't tell you anything more than

46:22

the size and distance is what the

46:24

signals were bouncing off of. But

46:27

if the Thai military realised that there

46:29

was an aircraft in their airspace without

46:31

permission, they would have reacted, and

46:33

Zahaari would have known this. After

46:36

just managing to make a tight enough U-turn

46:38

to avoid Thai airspace, Zahaari

46:40

flew MA370 back over the

46:42

Malaysian Peninsula. He now

46:44

needed to avoid alerting the Malaysian Air Force

46:47

and also being thwarted by his own co-pilot. The

46:50

passengers of the plane would have at

46:52

this point had their oxygen masks on,

46:54

but were likely reassured that the worst

46:56

was over. The cabin crew

46:59

may have explained that the flight had experienced

47:01

decompression and that they'd reduced altitude to

47:03

get to a breathable level. The

47:06

co-pilots, Farik however, would

47:08

have been more suspicious. The

47:10

pilot's guidelines, in case of depressurisation,

47:12

do not mention turning the plane

47:14

around in some sort of sharp,

47:16

crazy U-turn, you're just meant to

47:19

reduce altitude. Farik would have needed

47:21

to attach his oxygen mask

47:23

to a portable oxygen tank, of

47:25

which there were 15 on board to make his

47:27

way back to a cockpit. Little

47:30

did Farik know that the cockpit door was

47:32

locked, and Zahaari had no intention

47:34

of letting him back in. And

47:37

little did the rest of the plane know that their

47:39

oxygen masks would only supply them with

47:41

oxygen for 20 minutes, and

47:44

Zahaari had absolutely no intention of

47:46

descending before those 20 minutes were up.

47:49

The 15 portable oxygen tanks on board for the

47:52

cabin crew however, held about 45 minutes worth

47:54

of oxygen. So at this

47:56

point, Farik would have been the only member of the

47:58

crew using a tank. The rest of the

48:01

cabin crew would have been sat using

48:03

the 20-minute supply waiting for the plane to

48:05

descend. This descent to safe

48:07

breathing levels is meant to take

48:09

just about 10 minutes. Farik

48:11

would have then pressed what is essentially the

48:14

doorbell for the cockpit, and Zahari

48:16

would have seen this on his central screen. To

48:18

open it, he would have simply needed to

48:20

turn a dial. But he didn't.

48:23

Zahari was focused on carefully balancing the

48:25

flight's path along the borders of Thailand

48:27

and Malaysia. That way, if

48:29

either country's military noticed the MH370,

48:33

they would assume it was being handled by the

48:35

airspace controllers of the other country. It

48:37

was genius. Meanwhile,

48:39

Farik would now have been aware that something

48:42

was horribly wrong. The cabin

48:44

was depressurised. They weren't descending. And

48:47

he was locked out of the cockpit. He

48:49

would then have used the emergency code which

48:51

unlocks the cockpit door. This code

48:53

allows cabin crew to enter the cockpit in

48:55

case the pilot falls unconscious, so it's a

48:58

manual override for the pilots inside not

49:00

letting them in. However, Zahari

49:02

would have turned the dial for the

49:04

door to the deny setting, which

49:06

renders this code useless. Of

49:09

course, you can see here that it's like the

49:11

people that build the plane, the engineers are trying to

49:13

think of every possibility because the purpose of this

49:15

dial is obviously to allow the crew to stop

49:17

would-be hijackers who have somehow found out the

49:19

emergency code from entering the cockpit. Only

49:22

now, it was being used by a

49:24

hijacker pilot to keep his copilot

49:26

out. And so, when

49:28

he was denied access, even with the emergency

49:31

code, it would have dawned on Farik that

49:33

his colleague copilot inside the cockpit was not

49:35

unconscious and that what was happening now

49:37

was deliberate. It's now

49:39

1.30am. The 227 passengers and 10 members of cabin crew only

49:44

had five minutes of oxygen left before

49:46

hypoxia was set in and MH370

49:48

became their coffin in

49:51

the sky. Zahari, however, had

49:53

26 hours worth of oxygen

49:55

left in his tank. It

49:58

was only at that point... that Vietnamese

50:00

air traffic control noticed Malaysian Flight

50:03

370 had never checked into

50:05

their airspace. And what's more, they

50:08

couldn't even see it. But

50:10

despite guidelines stating that air traffic controllers are

50:12

meant to make a report when an aircraft

50:14

takes more than five minutes to respond, Vietnamese

50:17

air traffic control did nothing.

50:20

Sahari was heading southwest over the

50:22

Malaysian Peninsula. The cabin crew and

50:24

passengers would now have been unconscious.

50:27

Farik, however, would have been in a

50:29

panic, and Sahari would have been

50:31

watching him on his security camera monitor. Once

50:34

Sahari reached the end of the Peninsula, he

50:37

was approaching the Indonesian island of Sumatra, and

50:39

the last thing he wanted to do was

50:42

enter that airspace. So,

50:44

he turned right and made his way

50:46

along the Malika Strait, a narrow

50:48

stretch of water between Sumatra and the

50:50

Malay Peninsula, allowing him to remain

50:52

in Malaysian airspace. And

50:55

as Sahari made this turn, Farik's

50:57

mobile phone connected briefly with a phone tower

50:59

on the ground as he attempted to make

51:01

a call. The call didn't go

51:03

through, but it did get

51:05

a signal for a second, and this

51:07

was recorded. At

51:09

2am, Malaysian Airlines were

51:11

notified that Vietnam was

51:13

unable to contact MA370, and

51:17

that they couldn't see it on their radar screens. The

51:19

system told Malaysian Airlines that the plane

51:22

was currently in Cambodian airspace, but

51:24

this, of course, was a red herring. The

51:27

Malaysian Airlines dispatcher was unaware

51:29

that the tracking system they

51:31

were looking at was not

51:33

a real-time update of MH370's

51:35

location. It was simply telling

51:37

them where the plane should have been

51:39

if everything was going as planned, so

51:42

they didn't worry about it too much just yet. Little

51:44

did they know MH370 was nowhere

51:47

near Cambodia, and its passengers

51:49

and crew were, by this point, either unconscious

51:51

or dead. This included co-pilot

51:54

Farik. And it wouldn't be until

51:56

much later that morning that they'd know just how

51:58

bad the situation truly was. Zahari

52:01

knew, although he'd taken every precaution

52:03

to not be detected so far,

52:05

that records of primary radar could

52:07

be used to plot his flight

52:09

path during an investigation. But

52:11

once he passed the island of Sumatra, if

52:14

he made a left turn out towards

52:16

the open southern Indian Ocean, there

52:18

wouldn't be any chance that M8370 could

52:20

ever be found. The Indian

52:22

Ocean is huge, and Zahari still had

52:25

almost six hours worth of fuel on

52:27

board. And hours and hours of

52:29

oxygen left for him. However,

52:32

what Zahari didn't know was this.

52:35

When he turned off the engine's electrical

52:37

generators to, in turn, turn off the

52:39

plane's A-car system, this also

52:42

turned off the cooling systems for

52:44

the cockpit's CPU. And this

52:46

would have caused them to begin overheating and Zahari

52:48

would have needed to switch them back on if

52:51

he didn't want to lose control of the plane. Zahari

52:53

would have turned the electricals back on to prevent

52:56

this once he was certain he was out of

52:58

range of the military radar. But

53:00

in doing so, unbeknownst to him, the

53:02

plane began sending and receiving pings

53:05

with the Inmarsat satellite above the

53:07

Indian Ocean. Which is

53:09

how, if you remember, investigators

53:11

were able to eventually calculate

53:13

MH370's real flight path. But

53:16

whether Zahari knew that or not isn't

53:18

really important. By this stage, his plan

53:20

was almost complete. He then

53:22

made a southward turn towards the open expanse

53:24

of the southern Indian Ocean, just as he

53:26

had on his flight simulator a month before.

53:29

This was the swan song of a suicidal murderer.

53:33

Terrifyingly, when authorities recovered the

53:35

deleted files from Zahari's flight

53:38

simulator, they found a simulation

53:40

flight Zahari had made on the 3rd of

53:42

February to the southern Indian Ocean. He

53:45

had set the date on the software

53:47

to the 21st of February, which also

53:49

happened to be the same night Zahari

53:51

had flown flight MH370 to

53:54

Beijing from Kuala Lumpur. But

53:56

he deleted the file the night before

53:58

and found the flew the plane

54:00

to Beijing as scheduled. It

54:03

would seem that the 21st of February had

54:05

actually been his first choice, but

54:08

something had made him hold off until the

54:10

8th of March. Now

54:12

flying into the abyss, Zahari would

54:14

have increased his altitude to make his

54:16

fuel and final hours last as long

54:18

as possible. This would have

54:20

allowed him to fly out into the southern

54:22

Indian Ocean as far as possible, making

54:24

it even less likely that the wreckage would

54:27

ever be discovered. But why

54:29

did Zahari go to such lengths to make

54:31

it as hard as possible to find the

54:33

wreckage? If he did it, he

54:35

planned to buy his wheel, so what did

54:38

it matter? Maybe Zahari

54:40

wanted to spare his family the shame

54:42

of everybody knowing for certain that

54:44

he had killed all those people on him since. It's

54:47

really the only explanation that makes

54:49

any sense. In his

54:51

final few hours, Zahari may also

54:53

have placed the plane on autopilot,

54:56

taken off his oxygen mask and allowed

54:58

hypoxia to take him away. And

55:00

so MH370 would have become a

55:02

ghost plane flying further and further

55:04

out over the Indian Ocean until

55:07

it exhausted all of its fuel and crashed

55:09

into the water, disintegrating on

55:11

impact. And this

55:14

is believed to have been at some

55:16

point between 8.20am when the last

55:18

handshake was recorded with the

55:20

Inmarsat satellite and 9.15am

55:23

when the plane didn't respond. It

55:26

does seem like as you said that's the only theory that makes

55:28

any sense because he thought he'd go through a lot of effort

55:30

when he could have just bashed it

55:32

into the ocean. So much effort, so

55:34

much planning and I don't know, I guess there's

55:37

two theories here, right? I do believe that the

55:39

reason that he goes through so much effort

55:41

to cover his tracks and to get the

55:43

plane as far out into the southern Indian

55:45

Ocean as possible so that it's not recovered

55:48

is probably to protect his legacy. Let there

55:50

always be some question mark over what really

55:52

happened. Protect his family to some extent, blah

55:54

blah blah. But I think very

55:57

similarly to how we would see like

55:59

fantasy driven... The

56:02

idea that planning isn't

56:04

as important as the execution of

56:06

the plan. I think you see

56:08

that here with Zahari. The idea that

56:10

he's at home with his flight simulator,

56:13

he's planning these routes, he thinks he's so

56:15

smart, he's thought of every little possibility. He's

56:18

like, I take a hard turn here so the

56:20

tires don't see me, I go here, I go

56:22

here. I think that is as part what

56:24

got him off as what he ends

56:26

up maybe doing. And I think the

56:28

route that he takes and the u-turns

56:30

he takes and the precautions he takes

56:32

there is also so no one can

56:34

stop him from completing the task at

56:36

hand. But yeah, I think taking it

56:38

out as far as possible was maybe also like

56:40

we said because he wanted to take his mask

56:42

off and not actually be the one that drove

56:44

it into the water so that he

56:47

could just go out passively. But

56:49

yeah, multi-reasons, I think, multi-faceted reasons for

56:51

why he did what he did. So

56:54

there you have it. After researching various theories

56:56

as to what happened to MH370 and the 239 people

57:01

on board, this is what we found to

57:03

be the most plausible because of

57:05

the evidence we have like the pings

57:07

and the co-pilot's phone getting momentary signal.

57:09

But again, this is just speculation. As

57:12

avionics expert Richard Godfrey has said, there

57:15

unfortunately is no smoking

57:17

gun proving Zahari's guilt. This

57:20

is what he had to say. Most

57:22

of the evidence points to a murder-suicide

57:24

by Captain Zahari's Shah, although

57:26

the evidence is insufficient to stand up

57:28

in a court of law, which is

57:30

possibly what Zahari's plan was all along.

57:34

We know the likely truth, but nobody

57:36

will ever be able to prove it. Now

57:39

as for the shambolic three-part Netflix

57:41

documentary MH370 The Plane That

57:43

Disappeared, the first part of the documentary

57:45

does outline the theory that Zahari may have been

57:47

responsible, but barely.

57:50

It goes on to say that he was such

57:52

a nice guy, it wasn't too likely that

57:54

he was the killer. Okay Netflix.

57:58

They've got to have a hook. They do. They

58:00

do have to have a hook, I think it's boring for them

58:02

to say the same thing that everybody else is saying, so they're

58:04

like, Oh I dunno, he just seemed like such

58:06

a nice guy, could he have done it? Okay,

58:08

so the second part of the doc ...entertains a

58:10

theory that two Russians hijacked a plane

58:13

by climbing into the main equipment

58:15

centre, accessible by a hatch on the

58:17

floor of the first gas cabin. The

58:19

documentary they want to say that these Russians then

58:22

took complete control of the aircraft, faked

58:24

satellite location data and landed the

58:26

plane in Kazakhstan. Aviation

58:29

experts however have pointed out that it's

58:31

not possible to control a plane from

58:33

the MEC and satellite location data

58:35

is transmitted live and cannot be manipulated. And

58:38

also the plane would have been picked up

58:40

by the radar systems of nine countries on

58:42

its way to Kazakhstan. Also why would they

58:44

have done this anyway and they kept completely

58:47

silent about it? It makes no sense. I

58:49

think this is what Netflix does, you're absolutely right. They

58:52

always want to have an angle and it's like that

58:54

song with the Sam documentary that they put out.

58:56

I forgot about that. Where they're like, maybe there

58:58

wasn't just one son of Sam. Maybe it was

59:00

sons of Sam. And everyone was like, no. No.

59:04

Because David Berkowitz told you. He's

59:06

also the man that told him the fucking dog next

59:08

door told him to kill all those people and then

59:10

later said, ah nah, I was just

59:13

kidding. I was just pretending to be

59:15

crazy. So yeah, that's their second

59:17

theory. Their third theory is, I have

59:19

to say, even more ludicrous.

59:22

French journalist Florence de Change

59:25

proposes that MH370 was shot down

59:27

by the US needleman. Why?

59:30

Change believes that the plane

59:32

was carrying some special Motorola

59:34

equipment to Beijing and that

59:37

the CIA didn't want the Chinese to get their hands

59:39

on this. They murdered

59:41

239 innocent people

59:44

to prevent this from happening. Apparently.

59:47

Not to mention that this would also have

59:49

required a lot of people to have known

59:51

about this and kept their mouths shut about

59:54

such an atrocity for almost a decade. Which

59:56

hardly seems likely. Also, none of

59:59

the evidence. whatsoever backs up

1:00:01

this theory. The other,

1:00:03

less bizarre yet flawed theories involve

1:00:05

a catastrophe on board, such as a

1:00:07

complete electrical failure or a fire in the

1:00:09

cockpit. But the evidence we

1:00:11

do have is more than enough to make

1:00:13

us question those ideas. For one,

1:00:16

the perfectly timed maneuvers of the plane, which

1:00:18

stopped it from being detected by military and

1:00:20

civilian radars, seems too far-fetched

1:00:22

to have been a coincidence. And

1:00:25

also, the fact that the electricals

1:00:27

turned back on at the perfect

1:00:29

time. And as for

1:00:31

the theories involving a terrorist hijacking, well,

1:00:33

these would have had to be the

1:00:35

most sophisticated and meticulous hijackers of all

1:00:37

time. And also, the most pointless

1:00:39

hijackers of all time as well, because no

1:00:42

demands were made, no messages were sent. And

1:00:44

in almost a decade, no group has

1:00:47

ever claimed responsibility. So

1:00:49

our old friend Occam's razor would suggest

1:00:51

that a highly skilled pilot in the

1:00:53

grips of clinical depression pulled off this

1:00:56

audacious, yet very much achievable, atrocity.

1:00:59

And this is what the evidence seems to point to.

1:01:02

But, as we have said until we are

1:01:04

blue in the face and suffering a 5-pop here, we'll

1:01:07

never know for sure. So

1:01:09

yeah. Is that what pilots are thinking about

1:01:11

while we're all asleep? How to

1:01:13

murder us all? Yeah, and get away with

1:01:15

it. I mean, maybe it's like

1:01:17

the call of the void. Hard

1:01:20

to avoid thinking about it, because

1:01:23

there is a lot of power. I mean, you could

1:01:26

with this level of

1:01:28

careful planning, murder everybody on your entire

1:01:30

Boeing 777. And

1:01:32

I don't know, do psychoviles that

1:01:35

pilots go through adequately tell

1:01:37

anybody who needs to know whether they're AOK to

1:01:39

be flying that plane? I don't know. But

1:01:43

it is terrifying. But remember, this

1:01:45

is a very rare case. This

1:01:48

is one story. Actually, I don't know. Then

1:01:50

there was a German wing thing. I don't know,

1:01:52

guys. It's scary, but

1:01:54

you know, so is everything.

1:01:57

I don't know how to round this off in a positive way. Phew,

1:02:00

come on, me either. Be the right level

1:02:02

of afraid. There

1:02:04

you go. Cool. That's cool. And

1:02:07

don't listen to this on a plane. No,

1:02:09

don't. If you're listening to this on a plane, it's

1:02:12

too late. You're finished. Unless

1:02:14

you're like one of those weird people that read the last page

1:02:16

of a book first or whatever. What?

1:02:19

No one does that, do they? I rarely have people that do

1:02:21

that. I don't get why. Are you one of those people? If

1:02:23

so, have a safe flight. Have a safe flight. Prime

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