New MH370 probe shows controls deliberately manipulated

Putrajaya : Investigators released a report on missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 yesterday, saying the Boeing 777’s controls were likely deliberately manipulated to take it off course but they were not able to determine who was responsible. The 495-page report draws no conclusion about what happened aboard the plane that vanished with 239 people on board en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014, leaving one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries unsolved.

“The answer can only be conclusive if the wreckage is found,” Kok Soo Chon, head of  the MH370 safety investigation team, told reporters. On May 29, Malaysia called off a three-month search by U.S. firm Ocean Infinity, which spanned 112,000 sq km (43,243 sq miles) in the southern Indian Ocean and ended with no significant findings. It was the second major search after Australia, China and Malaysia ended a fruitless A$200 million (£112.8 million) search across an area of 120,000 sq km (46,332 sq miles) last year.

Malaysian and international investigators have been looking into why the jet veered thousands of miles off course from its scheduled route before eventually plunging into the Indian Ocean. The last communication from the plane was from the Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah who signed off with “Good night, Malaysian three seven zero”, as the plane left the Malaysian airspace and later turned off course. A 440-page final report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) last year showed that Zaharie had flown a route on his home flight simulator six weeks earlier that was “initially similar” to the one actually taken by MH370.