More than 100 people questioned in probe into missing MH370
More than 100 people, including families of both the pilot and the co-pilot of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have been questioned since its disappearance 17 days ago, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said today.
The acting transport minister said this at the media briefing at the Putra World Trade Centre, following speculation that the pilot and the co-pilot were involved in deliberately diverting the plane off its course.
It was also reported by UK's The Mirror earlier today that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is expected to question the wife of the pilot as authorities look into the possibility that the plane could have been hijacked.
Police had also searched the homes of pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah and co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid more than a week ago after Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak confirmed that the flight was taken off its scheduled route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on March 8.
Authorities seized a fight simulator from Zaharie's home and have assembled the device at the Bukit Aman police headquarters where experts have examined it.
It was reported that the FBI have been roped in to recover data deleted in the simulator.
Hishammuddin also said that authorities are considering releasing the transcript of the conversation between the cockpit and the Malaysian control tower.
"As far as the transcript is concerned, the technical committee is considering releasing it and we will keep you informed about the decision," he said.
He had previously said that initial investigations into the original transcript of the conversation had not turned up anything suspicious, but that it was still being analysed by the investigation team.
"As is standard practice in investigations of this sort, the transcript cannot be publicly released at this stage. I can, however, confirm that the transcript does not indicate anything abnormal," he had said. – March 24. 2014.
