MH370 Missing flight pilot may have simulated flight

Data recovered from a home flight simulator owned by the captain of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 showed that someone had used the device to plot a course to the southern Indian Ocean — where the missing jet is believed to have crashed, Australian officials have said.

New York magazine reported last week that an FBI analysis showed Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah had conducted a simulated flight to the southern Indian Ocean less than a month before the plane vanished along a similar route.

Malaysia rejected the report as false, but Australia’s Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre confirmed yesterday that the captain’s simulator did indeed show that “someone had plotted a course to the southern Indian Ocean”.

The Boeing 777 vanished with 239 people on board after flying far off course during a flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China, on March 8, 2014.

New York magazine cited the discovery as strong evidence that the disappearance was a premeditated act of mass murder-suicide.

But Malaysia’s national police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said police had never handed any document or information to any authority abroad, including the FBI — although Malaysia’s transport minister confirmed two years ago that Malaysia was working with the FBI to analyse data from the simulator’s hard drives.

The confirmation by the Australians appears to contradict repeated assertions from Malaysia that no such route had been found on the captain’s simulator.