The Malaysian Insight

IN what was described as his first meeting with the kin of an MH370 victim, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said Malaysia intends to continue looking for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane.

Dr Mahathir had met with Australian Danica Weeks, whose husband, Paul, was on board MH370, for an interview with the 60 Minutes Australia programme in Putrajaya.

In the programme that aired yesterday, Weeks made an appeal to Dr Mahathir to continue the search for the plane and “for some way to bring everyone’s loved ones home”.

March 8 marks the fifth anniversary of the plane’s disappearance. There is still no confirmation on where the plane, which was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew members aboard, had ended up.

“We intend to continue. Nowadays, with electronic detection, it may be possible for us to find where the plane had gone down,” Dr Mahathir said.

“Not knowing what happened is extremely distressing. You don’t know whether he is somewhere or not. I appreciate that very much.”

In the half-hour he spent with Weeks and the programme’s host, Sarah Abo, he said losing people was “something else”.

“You can’t sleep, thinking about it… (asking) what has happened, and you get no answer. As long as there is hope, we will think of ways and means to find out,” the prime minister said.

When Abo asked Dr Mahathir how he would feel if he had a loved one on board MH370, he said he would be “very upset, especially if the search is terminated”.

“Not knowing if they are dead or alive, where they may be. It is extremely upsetting.”

On what he thought had happened to MH370, he said he had heard reports of it possibly being hijacked. He added that had a plane that size crashed on land or water, there would be signs.

“But here, there is absolutely no evidence. It’s strange, as if the plane just vanished.”

Dr Mahathir was also asked on a theory popular outside Malaysia that the person responsible for MH370’s disappearance was its own pilot, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, and that “blind national pride” had led Malaysia to turn a blind eye to his possible guilt.

Investigations early on had led to the discovery that Zaharie’s home flight simulator had a course plotted to the southern Indian Ocean, where the missing passenger jet is believed to have crashed.

Dr Mahathir said he could not envision that such a senior pilot with such vast experience would do such a thing.

“I don’t know how he could make the plane disappear. I don’t think anyone can answer this question,” he said.

The programme also interview Transport Minister Anthony Loke, who said Malaysia was committed in resuming the search if credible evidence surfaces.

“We would like to find the plane and give closure to the families,” he told Abo.

On accusations that Zaharie had hijacked the plane, Loke said “nobody can put the blame on anyone” until the plane and its blackbox were found.

He also said the authorities had not discounted evidence found in Zaharie’s home, either.

“I don’t think we have discounted any evidence. I think’s it’s not fair to blame anyone at this point.

“We hope more credible evidence will surface in the months to come, so the search can resume,” he said.

Yesterday, Loke also said Putrajaya was willing to consider proposals from any exploration or search company with credible leads and the technology to restart the search for MH370.

On May 29 last year, United States-based exploration company Ocean Infinity, which conducted the last search for MH370 in the Indian Ocean, halted its efforts after failing to find any debris.

Last July, the MH370 Safety Investigation Team, in its 449-page report, concluded that they were unable to determine the cause of the disappearance of the ill-fated flight but did not rule out the possibility that “unlawful interference” by a third party had caused the incident. 

The Australian programme also spoke to The Hunt for MH370 author Ean Higgins, who said that the new Malaysian administration had shown it was beginning to open up to Western journalists on the issue.

He said the meeting between Weeks and Dr Mahathir was “very significant”, as it showed that the leader was open to the possibility of restarting the search.

“If he were to decide so, the country that supports him greatly will be right behind him.”

On Zaharie, Higgins said Malaysia had strong reasons not to appear like it has lost face, as MAS was a government-owned airline and it would not look good.

He said the only reason to change the course of the plane from the Straits of Malacca towards the southern Indian Ocean, where there is no place to land, could only have been suicide.

He also said that had never been any claim of responsibility, as no final message was ever found.

“Either it was never found or it got into other hands. There’s some part of the puzzle we don’t know about. There’s no claim of responsibility.

“What’s the point of making a political protest when you don’t let anyone know why you did it?” he said, referring to speculation that Zaharie was outraged by the second sodomy conviction of then opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim just hours before he took off in MH370.

The programme also interviewed two people who knew Zaharie – crisis manager Fuad Sharuji, who headed the airlines post-accident office, and his close friend, Peter Chong.

Fuad, who had responded to the crisis the moment MH370 was reported missing, said he did not believe Zaharie had killed himself or all the passengers.

“A person who takes the lives of 239 passengers and crew members, including his own, must be a completely deranged person and mad man. Crazy. None of that was Zaharie’s character.”

Chong said anyone who knew Zaharie would say he was not that kind of person.

Although he was “very politically concerned”, Zaharie was not capable of mass murder, he said.

“To commit mass murder; no way. No possibility. Certainly not the Zaharie that I knew.” – March 4, 2019.