MH370 pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah. 
 
 New York has obtained a confidential document from the Malaysian police investigation into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 that shows that the plane’s captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, conducted a simulated flight deep into the remote southern Indian Ocean less than a month before the plane vanished under uncannily similar circumstances. The revelation, which Malaysia withheld from a lengthy public report on the investigation, is the strongest evidence yet that Zaharie made off with the plane in a premeditated act of mass murder-suicide. 
 
 The document presents the findings of the Malaysian police’s investigation into Zaharie. It reveals that after the plane disappeared in March of 2014, Malaysia turned over to the FBI hard drives that Zaharie used to record sessions on an elaborate home-built flight simulator. The FBI was able to recover six deleted data points that had been stored by the Microsoft Flight Simulator X program in the weeks before MH370 disappeared, according to the document. Each point records the airplane’s altitude, speed, direction of flight, and other key parameters at a given moment. The document reads, in part: > 
 
 MH370's presumed flight path is in yellow. Zaharie's simulated suicide flight is in red. 
 
 New York has obtained a confidential document from the Malaysian police investigation into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 that shows that the plane’s captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, conducted a simulated flight deep into the remote southern Indian Ocean less than a month before the plane vanished under uncannily similar circumstances. The revelation, which Malaysia withheld from a lengthy public report on the investigation, is the strongest evidence yet that Zaharie made off with the plane in a premeditated act of mass murder-suicide. 
 
 The document presents the findings of the Malaysian police’s investigation into Zaharie. It reveals that after the plane disappeared in March of 2014, Malaysia turned over to the FBI hard drives that Zaharie used to record sessions on an elaborate home-built flight simulator. The FBI was able to recover six deleted data points that had been stored by the Microsoft Flight Simulator X program in the weeks before MH370 disappeared, according to the document. Each point records the airplane’s altitude, speed, direction of flight, and other key parameters at a given moment. The document reads, in part: > 
 
 Search officials believe MH370 followed a similar route, based on signals the plane transmitted to a satellite after ceasing communications and turning off course. The actual and the simulated flights were not identical, though, with the simulated endpoint some 900 miles from the remote patch of southern ocean area where officials believe the plane went down. Based on the data in the document, here’s a map of the simulated flight compared to the route searchers believe the lost airliner followed: 
 
 Rumors have long circulated that the FBI had discovered such evidence, but Malaysian officials made no mention of the find in the otherwise detailed report into the investigation, “Factual Information,” that was released on the first anniversary of the disappearance. 
 
 The credibility of the rumors was further undermined by the fact that many media accounts mentioned “a small runway on an unnamed island in the far southern Indian Ocean,” of which there are none. 
 
 From the beginning, Zaharie has been a primary suspect, but until now no hard evidence implicating him has emerged. The “Factual Information” report states, “The Captain’s ability to handle stress at work and home was good. There was no known history of apathy, anxiety, or irritability. There were no significant changes in his life style, interpersonal conflict or family stresses.” After his disappearance, friends and family members came forward to described Zaharie as an affable, helpful family man who enjoyed making instructional YouTube videos for home DIY projects — hardly the typical profile of a mass murderer. 
 
 The newly unveiled documents, however, suggest Malaysian officials have suppressed at least one key piece of incriminating information. This is not entirely surprising: There is a history in aircraft investigations of national safety boards refusing to believe that their pilots could have intentionally crashed an aircraft full of passengers. After EgyptAir 990 went down near Martha’s Vineyard in 1999, for example, Egyptian officials angrily rejected the U.S. National Transport Safety Board finding that the pilot had deliberately steered the plane into the sea. Indonesian officials likewise rejected the NTSB finding that the 1997 crash of SilkAir 185 was an act of pilot suicide. 
 
 Previous press accounts suggest that Australian and U.S. officials involved in the MH370 investigation have long been more suspicious of Zaharie than their Malaysian counterparts. In January, Byron Bailey wrote in The Australian: “Several months after the MH370 disappearance I was told by a government source that the FBI had recovered from Zaharie’s home computer deleted information showing flight plan waypoints … my source … left me with the impression that the FBI were of the opinion that Zaharie was responsible for the crash.” 
 
 However, it’s not entirely clear that the recovered flight-simulator data is conclusive. The differences between the simulated and actual flights are significant, most notably in the final direction in which they were heading. It’s possible that their overall similarities are coincidental — that Zaharie didn’t intend his simulator flight as a practice run but had merely decided to fly someplace unusual. 
 
 Today, ministers from Malaysia, China, and Australia announced that once the current seabed search for MH370’s wreckage is completed, they will suspend further efforts to find the plane. The search was originally expected to wrap up this month, but stormy weather has pushed back the anticipated completion date to this fall. So far, 42,000 square miles have been covered at a cost of more than $130 million, with another 4,000 square miles to go. 
 
 “I must emphasise that this does not mean we are giving up on the search for MH370,” Malaysian Transport minister Liow Tiong Lai said. Officials have previously stated that if they received “credible new information that leads to the identification of a specific location of the aircraft,” the search could be expanded. 
 
 But some, including relatives of the missing passengers, believe that that evidentiary threshold has already been past. Recent months have seen the discovery of more than a dozen pieces of suspected aircraft debris, which analyzed collectively could narrow down where the plane went down. (The surprising absence of such wreckage for more than a year left me exploring alternative explanations that ultimately proved unnecessary.) The fact that Zaharie apparently practiced flying until he ran out of fuel over the remote southern Indian Ocean suggests the current search is on the right track — and that another year of hunting might be a worthwhile investment. ||||| Experts reveal how the deliberate flight path by the pilot helped to avoid military detection. 
 
 IF YOU think you finally know the truth about what happened to MH370 after watching Sunday’s 60 Minutes special on the missing plane, you are sorely mistaken. 
 
 While most aviation specialists agree that evidence points to the plane having been intentionally steered into the ocean, nobody has been able to come up with a motive. 
 
 Senior Boeing 777 pilot and instructor Simon Hardy believes Captain Zaharie Shah downed the aircraft in an act of murder-suicide, having plotted a flight plan to nowhere on his home simulator. 
 
 Repeating what he told the BBC way back in 2015, Mr Hardy told the Channel 9 program that Zaharie made a detour over Penang for a nostalgic last look at his home town before ditching in the southern Indian Ocean in a spot where he knew the aircraft “could never be found”. 
 
 The program was aired just days before the release of a new book MH370: Mystery Solved, written by aviator Larry Vance who also appeared on the 60 Minutes special. 
 
 Promotion leading up to the television special claimed its expert panel would reveal the “true fate” of the doomed aircraft, but there was plenty the program didn’t cover. 
 
 WHAT WAS THE MOTIVE? 
 
 What was missing from the commentary was a motive — what possible reason could Capt Zaharie have had to justify the murder of 238 other people? 
 
 Just days after the plane disappeared, Zaharie and his co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid, were named by the Malaysian authorities as prime suspects in the aircraft’s disappearance. 
 
 From the very start, there were rumours that Zaharie’s marriage was in trouble and that he had decided to down the plane in a fit of rage and grief after learning that she was about to leave him. 
 
 Another theory claimed that he hijacked his own plane in protest of the jailing of then-Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, and as a way to destabilise the corrupt government of Najib Razak. 
 
 Zaharie’s sisters Sakinab Shah and Dah Ah have repeatedly denied both theories, claiming his marriage was going strong and arguing that he simply wasn’t smart enough to evade “all the hi-tech satellites in the world”. 
 
 Blaine Gibson, a US lawyer turned MH370 hunter who has collected dozens of pieces of suspected debris from the missing plane which have washed up in Madagascar and the coast of South Africa, pointed out in 2016 that both pilots were heavily scrutinised. 
 
 “They have gone under the microscope for more than two years and nothing in their personal lives indicates they could have done this,” Mr Gibson said. 
 
 Both pilots were cleared by Malaysian authorities, who examined psychological reports and footage of their behaviour before they boarded the doomed flight and found no red flags. 
 
 Former Malaysian dictator Mahathir Mohamad — who joined forces with his former arch nemesis Mr Ibrahim to oust Mr Razak in a stunning return to power last week — has publicly stated his belief that MH370 hijacked by remote control. 
 
 Even if it was true that Zaharie killed himself and 238 others in protest of Razak’s treatment of Mr Ibrahim, it seems unlikely that the new government would admit any significant association with him, given Mahathir’s intention to make him his deputy. 
 
 SOMEONE ACTUALLY CLAIMED RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 A shadowy group called the Chinese Martyrs’ Brigade claimed responsibility for the disappearance of MH370 just days after the plane vanished — but officials were sceptical and said the claim could be a hoax. 
 
 The previously unheard of group sent an email to journalists across China that read: “You kill one of our clan, we will kill 100 of you as pay back.” 
 
 But the message provided no details of what brought the flight down. 
 
 Malaysia’s then-acting transport minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, told reporters at Kuala Lumpur International Airport that he doubted the claim’s legitimacy. 
 
 “There is no sound or credible grounds to justify their claims,” he said, according to Malaysian news reports. 
 
 Other officials said the claim could be a hoax aimed at increasing ethnic tensions between Uighurs and Han Chinese in the wake of the recent knife attack in the southwestern city of Kunming on March 1, 2014, that left 29 people dead and injured about 140 others. 
 
 The message was delivered through an anonymous, encrypted Hushmail service that is virtually impossible to trace, authorities said. 
 
 In a strange twist, a Uighur painter named Memetjan Abdullah was aboard the plane on what was his first flight outside China. 
 
 AT LEAST TWO PASSENGERS HAD FAKE PASSPORTS 
 
 Authorities scrutinising passengers on board MH370 found to their horror that at least two had been carrying fake identification. 
 
 According to investigators, the two men, both Iranians were travelling on forged and stolen passports in a bid to reach Europe and seek asylum there. 
 
 The men, who were identified as Pouria Nour Mohammad, 19, and Seyed Mohammed Rezar Delawar, 29 were friends, according to Malaysian officials. 
 
 Nour Mohammad had been using a stolen Austrian passport in an attempt to reach Germany to seek asylum and reunite with his mother, Malaysian police said. His mother was waiting for him in Frankfurt. 
 
 Delawar was believed to have been using a stolen Italian passport. 
 
 At the time, Malaysia’s civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said investigators were looking into the involvement of a stolen passport syndicate. 
 
 Police raided a travel agency in the Thai resort city of Pattaya where the two men travelling with the stolen passports bought their tickets to Europe via Beijing. 
 
 A manager at the Grand Horizon Travel agency told The Times that an Iranian contact known as “Mr Ali’’, with whom the company had been doing business for three years, had asked her to buy Etihad and Qatar Airways flights for two customers. 
 
 The men were due to fly on March 1, 2014 but did not do so. When the tickets expired, Mr Ali asked her to book the cheapest flights to Europe — in this case, a Malaysian Airlines flight from Kuala Lumpur connecting through Beijing and on to Amsterdam. 
 
 Visa requirements have been eased in recent years for Iranian nationals travelling to Malaysia, making the country a popular hub for Iranian tourists, students, and those looking for ways to emigrate to Europe. 
 
 An unnamed Iranian, who met both passengers in Malaysia and went with them to the airport, told the BBC’s Persian service in 2014 about the days before their departure. 
 
 “One of the two was my friend from high school,” the friend said, apparently referring to Nour Mohammad. 
 
 “I met him the first day he arrived in Malaysia … He said he was staying for three to four days but was eventually going to Germany. His final destination was Frankfurt.” 
 
 Very little was known about Delawar, other than that he was friends with the other Iranian. Despite this, authorities concluded it was unlikely that either man had terrorist links or had anything to do with the plane’s disappearance.
– Australian officials have confirmed that data recovered from a home flight simulator owned by the captain of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 showed that someone used the device to plot a course to the southern Indian Ocean, where the missing jet is believed to have crashed, the AP reports. There has been confusion over what was found on Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah's flight simulator since New York magazine reported last week that an FBI analysis showed Zaharie had conducted a simulated flight to the region less than a month before the plane vanished along a similar route. Malaysia rejected the report as false. But Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Center confirmed on Thursday that the captain's simulator did indeed show that "someone had plotted a course to the southern Indian Ocean." "The MH370 captain's flight simulator showed someone had plotted a course to the southern Indian Ocean," JACC said in an email to Reuters. But "the simulator information shows only the possibility of planning. It does not reveal what happened on the night of the aircraft's disappearance, nor where the aircraft is located," the agency said in another email. New York notes that Zaharie has long been considered a prime suspect in the plane's disappearance, though officials from Australia and other countries have been more suspicious than Malaysian investigators. Malaysia, Australia, and China have decided to suspend the search for the plane when the current search area has been fully checked, which should happen by the end of this year.