INTRO:
It is rare for a plane to disappear as if it just no longer exists, but this was the case for the Malaysian Flight 370 on March 8, 2014 (Soucie 1). The flight took off in Kuala Lampur and had plans to land in Beijing, but it never arrived. Zaharie Ahmad Shah flew the plane out from the airport and shortly after, the plane would disappear from the radar completely and no debris would be found upon a search for the fallen plane (Soucie 1). Because of the improbability of this event, people began conspiring about what happened the night the plane went missing. Many people blame the pilot, Shah, while others believe it had been hijacked during a murder/ suicide attempt, and some believe it had just been an accidental fire (Baker 1). Among these theories the most probable is that it was a mechanical fire due to the technology on the plane and the fact that all passengers have been cleared of hijacking the plane.
CHARACTER ANALYSIS:
Zaharie Ahmad Shah was born July 31, 1961, and started flying for the Malaysian airlines in 1981 (Birchall 1). He died at 53 when the Malaysian Flight 370 went missing (1). By the time his career ended, he had 18, 423 hours of flight and he had been a captain for 16 years, placing him in a pilot seat of a Boeing 777 for over 8,659 hours (1). He has specifically been with Malaysia Airlines since “1981 when he was a Cadet Pilot” (1). His training began in the Philippines and he graduated two years later and became the Second Officer for the Fokker F27 (1). Shah had a wife and three children; however, leading up to his last flight, he had been having problems in his marriage (Lockett 1). The rumors of his wife leaving were revealed after Flight 370 went missing (Birchall 1). Based on interviews with family of Shah, he was a passionate man, yet depressed.
After he went missing, his sister was interviewed on her thoughts of the situation and her lasting impression of her brother. According to her, Zaharie Shah had a “passion for life, for family and above all for flying” (Holmes 1). He had made DIY projects for pictures of his family and protecting the house they lived in (1). His passion for flying can also be seen in his hobbies. Shah spent his free time paragliding and controlling flight simulators (Birchall 1). He created a very complex computer system to simulate flight. Over the course of two years he pieced together monitors, computers, coding systems, and a mock panel (Belzer 128). Zaharie Shah also led a very politically active life. He openly believed that the political system of Malaysia was corrupt and that the last election had been stolen. He even “attended a court hearing just hours before the flight, in which [the leader] was sentenced to prison” (129). He was passionate enough about holding their leader accountable, that he made time to participate before he had to go to work. In addition to this, he made efforts to post about the corrupt system to his Facebook account, in which he says: “Do the police know what they are for.” The caption is attached to a News headline of a woman who died after being disregarded by the police when she was attacked at a bus stop (Shah 1). There are over thirty other posts on this account that shame their democracy system for corruption.
Above all of the speculation surrounding Shah after the plane went missing, he was still loved by his family and friends; however, it was revealed that in the time leading up to the crash, Shah was struggling mentally. The mental retreat from society was likely due to his recently failed marriage with his wife, who described him to be “distant and difficult to understand” (Lockett 1). He had been with his wife since high school and major changes like the one he experienced can alter the state of someone’s mind tremendously. This statement is backed up by his daughter when she says, “He wasn’t the father I knew. He seemed disturbed and lost in a world of his own" (1). Most of the pilot’s time was spent alone with his flight simulator and he had begun hardly speaking to his children (1). Taking yourself away from society and your family is a sign of depression and possibly even suicidal thoughts.
CONSPIRACIES:
There are three common speculations regarding what actually happened the day that Malaysian Flight 370 disappeared. The first two conspiracies are similar because they both speculate that the plane had been hijacked (Belzer 121). Both theories are based off the same evidence and only differ by who hijacked the plane. Some believe that Zaharie Shah intentionally crashed the plane in a murder/ suicide attempt, and others believe that a passenger hijacked the plane in a terrorist attempt (Baker 1). However, many others believe the crash and disappearance were unintentional and can be linked to a mechanical fire (Baker 1). Based on the evidence provided and the technology that the plane was equipped with, the conspiracy of the Malaysian Flight 370 can easily be solved with the explanation of a mechanical fire.
Authorities were initially inclined to believe that the cause of the plane crash was a hijacking because the crashing did not follow a pattern of other planes that failed unintentionally. For example, the plane’s tracking device “was disabled before” the flight crashed (Riva 1). This highlights the fact that someone, whether it be a passenger or the pilot, wanted the plane to be untraceable. People speculated that only the pilot would have been able to turn off the tracker and communication system because it would take a knowledge of the panel in order to successfully turn off all forms of communication (Belzer 123). However, other people argued that it could likely be two specific passengers who boarded flight 370 (Belzer 125). The passengers in particular were Pouria Mehrdad and Delavar Reza; they were people of interest because they had stolen passports (Belzer 125). But despite the speculation surrounding these two passengers, police were able to clear them and declare that it was nearly impossible for a passenger on board to be responsible. After all passengers had been cleared of suspicion, authorities focused on the flight crew, in particular, Zaharie Ahmad Shah. Shah became a primary suspect when police discovered his mental health preceding the crash. He has been struggling and his wife admitted that he seemed “distant” because of their marital problems (Lockett 1). One comment from the pilot over the communication system drew attention because of the dark tone behind the meaning; this comment was “All right, good night” (Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: Where the investigation stands now). However, as ominous as this may sound, authorities were able to determine the comment was from the copilot and was innocent as it was first assumed to be. Based on the events leading up to the plane crash, there was not enough evidence to blame any person on board for a hijacking of the plane.
The theory that the crash was due to an accidental mechanical fire was much more convincing because of the technology on the plane. A former pilot Michael G. Fortune suggested that if the pilots knew something was wrong, they would have “communicated their emergency… as well ask for assistance” (Davies 1). This formulates the argument that there could not have been a fire because the smoke would have alarmed the pilots to take action. Additionally, the smoke could not have caused the pilots to go unconscious because they have oxygen masks (Davies 1). However, all of this can be explained using the technology of flight 370. Flight 370 was a Boeing 777 that was designed to “autonomously restore electrical systems after power surges without human intervention” (Belzer 140). If the pilots did not know there was something wrong with the plane’s electrical system, it makes sense that they did not attempt to fix the issue. This fact also backs up the failure of the communication system. If there were electrical problems on the plane, it is likely that the transponder turned off either by accident or as an attempt to restore its systems. It is known that the plane kept flying after the transponder had been shut off. This is consistent with the theory that there was an electrical surge that the pilots did not know about and stays consistent with Michael G Fortune’s theory that if there were a big fire, the pilots would have sent for help. They did not send for help because they were unaware of the problem. If they were unaware that there were failures, then it is obvious they would keep flying. The crash most likely occurred when the plane could not go any further because the failures were too extensive. Therefore, the best possible solution to the long debated conspiracy theory is an accidental mechanical fire.
CONCLUSION:
While there is a large debate about what happened to Malaysian Flight 370, there is compelling evidence that the solution to the anomaly is that there was a mechanical fire. The other arguments include a murder/ suicide attempt by the plane’s captain, Zaharie Shah, and a hijacking by a passenger on the plane. There was no evidence for a passenger to be motivated to take such extreme measures and all passengers were cleared from suspicion. Zaharie Shah, being a major suspect due to his knowledge of the panel and his declining mental health preceding the crash, was also cleared from suspicion because there was no evidence of foul play, except for the transponder being turned off. A fire on the Boeing 777 would cause the plane to automatically fix its issues without notifying the pilots. It could have easily malfunctioned and turned off the transponder without the pilot’s consent. Because there is no debris from the plane and it seems to have disappeared completely, there is no way to know for sure what happened, but a mechanical fire likely caused the crash.
