Malaysian Air Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah switched off the Boeing 777’s signaling system before his last communication with air controllers.
(Daily Mail)
Contact was lost under Vietnamese air control.
FOX News
A friend of the pilot says Zaharie Shah was devastated over his wife’s decision to move out and never should have been flying.
Mail Online reported:
The pilot of doomed flight MH370 was devastated over his wife’s decision to move out of their family home, and could have taken the plane for a ‘last joyride’ before it crashed into the southern Indian Ocean killing all 239 people on board, says a long-time friend of the pilot.
The friend, also a pilot, said Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah didn’t appear to be in the right state of mind to be flying, warning that it was ‘very possible that neither the passengers nor the other crew on-board knew what was happening until it was too late’.
‘He’s one of the finest pilots around and I’m no medical expert, but with all that was happening in his life Zaharie was probably in no state of mind to be flying,’ he told the NZ Herald on the condition of anonymity.
The friend said the pilot’s relationships were breaking down, with Captain Shah involved with another woman and his wife having decided to move out of their family home.
He said the pilot could have seen MH370 as an opportunity to try high-risk maneuvers he’d perfected on his beloved flight simulator.
These shocking new claims follow reports that flight MH370 climbed to between 43,000 and 45,000ft shortly after the last voice communication from the cockpit of the plane.
A source, who wished to remain anonymous, told MailOnline: ‘It was tracked flying at this altitude for 23 minutes before descending. Oxygen would have run out in 12 minutes [in a depressurised cabin], rendering the passengers unconscious.’
The 777-200ER Boeing aircraft used on the ill-fated flight has a maximum service ceiling of 43,000 feet and can very probably fly safely at even greater heights, one expert said.