Savannah Sweeney
9/23/19
English 1301
Fall 2019
9/23/19
Prof.Hammett
The Disappearance of the MH370
In this day and age of modern aviation technology, how does a plane disappear from the sky without a trace? On March 8, 2014, 277 passengers boarded a Boeing 777 to vanish without a trace and never return to their loved ones (Negroni). With any international crises, conspiracy theories begin to surface, and the Maylasian Flight 370 is no exception. Even though there are several conspiracy theories to explain this disappearance such as:
- The Hijack theory
- The Loss of Oxygen theory
- The Island landing theory
the Pilot suicide theory is probably the most probable cause of the plane’s disappearance.
With the mysterious disappearance of flight MH370, many people began to form their own allegations and conspiracies as to what exactly happened. With no time to spare, fingers began to point at the pilot of the MH370, Zaharie Ahmad Shah. From the outside looking in, Zaharie Shah looks like any other man; a man who loves his family, job, and community. However, with the mysterious disappearance of the airplane, many began to take a closer look into Zaharie Shah’s life. As authorities and friends dove deeper into Shah’s life, everyone seemed to realize that things are not quite what they seemed.
Anybody who knew Zaharie Ahmad Shah would say that he had an extreme devotion to his job and airplanes; Zaharie also loved to go above and beyond when it came to work (Birchall). Zaharie Shah was a veteran pilot of many years (1). In fact, one article would state that, “The 53-year-old had been an airline pilot with Malaysia Airlines for 33 years, and had 18,423 hours of flight time” (1). From this information alone, it would be easy to say that Zaharie worked hard at his job, and was very experienced in the art of flying. But, Zaharie did not stop there. After being moved to working with B777 airplanes, Zaharie would fly to complete over 8,659 hours of flight time with his new plane (1). Clearly, Zaharie had a passion for aviation.
Not only did Zaharie work at the airport, but he also worked and studied from home (Birchall). In fact, Shah created a flight simulator at his house to map out routes and practice flight patterns (1). With consistent effort and day in and day out practice, Zaharie Ahmad Shah proved his devotion to his craft and his impressive work ethic.
While Zharie Ahmad Shah was quite devoted to his job, he does not seem to have that same level of devotion for family life. In fact, Zharie Shah was unfaithful to his family and in particular his wife. After the disappearance of the MH370 plane, a personal investigation began on the head pilot, Mr. Zaharie (Malaysia). To much of his family’s surprise, the investigation yielded some major news. Zaharie Ahmad Shah was flirting with other women on Facebook (Kenton). In particular, it seemed that Zhariarie was particularly obsessed with a pair of twins (1). One article about Shah explained it best, “Married captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, sent 26-year-old sisters, Lan Qi Hui and Qi Min Lan messages, begging them to come to Kuala Lumpur...He sent the Malaysian twin sisters sexually suggestive messages” (Married). Suddenly, Zaharie Ahmad’s image seemed to fall apart. No longer was his family-loving character intact. In fact, with the news of Mr. Zaharie’s potential plans for infidelity, his whole life began to be questioned. In another article, one of Zaharie’s friends stated, “Zaharie’s marriage was bad. In the past he slept with some of the flight attendants. And so what? We all do. You’re flying all over the world with these beautiful girls in the back. But his wife knew” (Mailonline). From the testimony of his friend to the investigation that was taken into his social media accounts, it is clear that Zaharie Ahmad was struggling with family life. Unfortunately, it sounds as if Zaharie did not share the same love for his family as he did for his planes, and this led to a strained marriage and infidelity.
Towards the end of Zaharie’s life, one thing seemed to characterize his behavior and thoughts, mental illness. Outside looking in, Zaharie’s life looked perfect. However, with a struggling marriage and a new love life to balance on social media, the internal battles that Zaharie Ahmad Shah was facing were of great magnitude. These factors began to take their toll on Zaharie, and in one article a friend stated, “ that he paced around his house ” (MH370). Another source stated this, “Zaharie Ahmad Shah, appears to have conducted a simulated suicide flight scenario that ended with an aircraft disappearing in the Indian Ocean.”(Hruska). Clearly, towards the end of his life, Shah was not totally in his right mind. He was so desperate, that he was running suicide missions in his flight simulator. A life full of secrets and marriage troubles would drive any man to insanity, and Zaharie was no exception.
Throughout all of his life, and especially towards the end, Zaharie shah seemed to be characterized by his willingness to work hard, his infidelity, and his mental illness. After diving into Zaharie’s lifestyle and social media, it is easy to see how all these parts of his personality drove him to insanity. Unfortunately for Zaharie, after his disappearance, not a lot of good came out to affirm the good parts of his character. For Zaharie Ahmed Shah and his family’s sake, hopefully, people remember what an impressive, happy pilot he was and the amount of dedication that he put into his craft, rather than his infidelity or mental illness struggles.
When any major world event hits the news, conspiracy theories among the public will quickly surface. The disappearance of the MH370 was no exception to this phenomenon. But, unlike other major world news, this particular event had even the most high-up officials coming up with conspiracy theories. No one could figure out what happened to this plane, and everyone was just as confused as the next person as to how a Boeing 777 disappears without a trace. However, with all the conspiracies complied together, only a couple showed true validity. The three main conspiracy theories for the disappearance of the MH370 are the Hijack Theory, the Loss of Oxygen Theory, and the Island Landing Theory.
The first and most plausible conspiracy theory that surfaced was the “Pilot Hijack” theory. This theory goes something like this. Captain Zaharie was full of anxiety from his failing marriage. Instead of planning to fix it, he thought that the only way out was suicide (Morton). Zaharie got on the MH370 with only one intention, to not come back home (wise). Mid-flight, Captain Zaharie asked his co-pilot to get something from the cabin, and while the co-pilot was gone, Captain Zahrie dropped all the oxygen in the cabin and killed all passengers and the co-pilot (Kitching). With everyone in the plane dead, “ the pilot deliberately steered the aircraft into the ocean” (wise). Quite honestly, this conspiracy theory holds some promise. After Captain Zaharie’s life was closely evaluated, it was easy to see why he would want an escape. Out of all the conspiracy theories thrown out after the disappearance of the MH370, the “Pilot Hijack” theory seems to be the closest answer to what probably happened.
The disappearance of the MH370 was not only being speculated by public citizens and drama channels, but it also had pilots around the world making their own theories. After analyzing Captain Zaharie’s piloting history and looking at the type of plane he was flying, the general consensus of the pilot community was the “Loss of Oxygen” theory. One article states, “A theory considered by the Malaysian government and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau is that the passengers and crew of MH370 were incapacitated by an oxygen deficiency” (Baker) So, what is an oxygen deficiency and how does it make an airplane disappear? Basically, the theory is that the plane depressurized quickly and left the cabin and cockpit without oxygen (1). Because of this, all of the crew and passengers, including its captains, passed out. Eventually, the plane ended up crashing into the sea and no one has heard anything since. (Morton) Although this theory can obviously not be proven now, a lot of Malaysian citizens and Captain Zaharie’s family hang on to this theory, as it paints him in a much better light than the “Hijack Theory” (who).
The final theory that will be discussed is the “Island Landing Theory”. This theory is probably the most far fetched of all the others that have been previously discussed. The theory states, that Captain Zaharie took the plane off of its course and landed it on a random island (Lockett). How did no one find the plane? Well, Norman Davies says this, "It’s harder (to find) if it is on land, I’ll bet it was covered with camo cloth by the people I suspect met it on landing." (1) . To summarize this theory, Captain Zaharie flew the plane from its usual course, landed it on a secret island, and got someone or a certain group to cover the plane up in camo. Despite the fact that this theory is a bit far fetched, in a survey done on college students, over 50% said that the Island Landing Theory was the cause of the MH370’s disappearance. Overall, this theory seems a bit unbelievable, but when thinking about the fact that a plane disappeared from the sky, anything seems possible.
Even though the public tries to cover up the disappearance of the MH370 by offering alternatives such as The Hijack Theory, The Oxygen Loss theory, and the Island Theory, it will never take away the fact that over 200 families lost loved ones on a disappearing airplane. Until the truth is found or the plane is recovered, all people will have to continue believing and making theories about what happened on that fateful day.
Unfortunately for the families of those who lost their loved ones on the MH370, no definite answers have been found for their disappearance. However, from piecing together all of the clues and theories from that fateful day:
- the Hijack Theory
- Oxygen loss Theory
- the Island Landing Theory
seem to explain what probably happened on that flight. Out of all of these theories, the Hijack Theory is the most likely cause of the plane’s disappearance. When you look at Zaharie’s life and the fact that the plane has not been found yet, a suicide mission seems probable. However, all of these assumptions are just what they sound like, assumptions. We will probably never know what exactly happened to the MH370.
Works Cited
Baker, Sinéad. “The Mystery of MH370 Remains 5 Years Later - Here Are All the Theories, Dead Ends, and Unanswered Questions from the Most Bizarre Airline Disaster of the Century.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 8 Mar. 2019, https://www.businessinsider.com/mh370-theories-dead-ends-unanswered-questions-ahead-of-major-new-report-2018-7.
Birchall, Guy. “Who Was Zaharie Ahmad Shah? MH370 Pilot Who Was in Command of the Malaysian Airlines Jet When It Vanished.” The Sun, The Sun, 18 June 2019, https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7483593/zaharie-ahmad-shah-mh370-pilot-malaysian-airlines/.
Hruska, Joel. “Missing MH370 Pilot Conducted Suicide Flight Simulations over Indian Ocean.” ExtremeTech, 27 July 2016, https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/232430-missing-mh370-pilot-conducted-suicide-flight-simulations-over-indian-ocean.
Kenton, Luke. “MH370 Pilot 'Obsessed with Online Twins and Showed Self-Destructive Behaviour'.” Mirror, 23 Sept. 2018, https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/mh370-pilot-was-obsessed-online-13293889.
Kitching, Chris. “MH370 Captain Likely Locked Co-Pilot out of Cockpit and Crashed Jet, Says Friend.” Mirror, 17 June 2019, https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/depressed-mh370-captain-locked-co-16530787.
Lockett, Jon. “Ex-Pilot Says Missing Flight MH370 Flew towards 'Secret Runway' after Hijack.” The Sun, The Sun, 17 Mar. 2019, https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8655635/ex-boeing-pilot-claims-missing-flight-mh370-flown-towards-secret-runway-after-mid-air-hijack/.
Lockett, Jon. “Married MH370 Pilot Bombarded Instagram Model Twins with 97 Creepy Messages.” The Sun, The Sun, 19 June 2019, https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7325438/mh370-pilot-instagram-model-twins-messages/.
Mailonline, Joe Middleton For. “MH370 Pilot Was 'in a Bad Marriage' and 'Had Been Sleeping with Flight Attendants'.” Daily Mail Online, Associated Newspapers, 18 June 2019, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7151407/MH370-pilot-bad-marriage-sleeping-flight-attendants.html.
“Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: FBI Analyzing Deleted Data from Pilot's Home Flight Simulator.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/malaysia-airlines-flight-370-pilot-zaharie-ahmad-shah-deleted-files-from-simulator-police/.
“MH370 Captain Likely Locked Co-Pilot out of Cockpit and Crashed Jet, Says Friend.” Mirror, Youtube, and Reuter, 17 June 2019, https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/depressed-mh370-captain-locked-co-16530787.
Morton , Edouard. “Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: the Conspiracy Theories.” South China Morning Post, 20 July 2018, https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2115299/malaysia-airlines-flight-370-conspiracy-theories.
“Who Is Flight 370 Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah .” YouTube, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCHuO3PeyaI.
Wise, Jeff. “Exclusive: MH370 Pilot Flew a Suicide Route on His Home Simulator Closely Matching Final Flight.” Intelligencer, 22 July 2016,
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