An expert review of a secret report suggests that the co-pilot of the Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 may have tried to use his phone mid-flight before the aircraft mysteriously disappeared on 8th of March 2014.
Investigators submitted a detailed report of the disappearance to the Malaysian government in 2014. The report in detail said that a telecommunications tower at Bandar Baru Farlim Penang in Malaysia detected a mobile number registered to Fariq Abdul Hamid minutes before the Boeing 777 dropped off the radar.
Former Easyjet chief pilot Mike Keane supported a theory that Captain Zaharie Shah forcefully took control of the aircraft before plunging it into the sea in a mass murder-suicide. He believes the captain may have told Fariq to go to the cabin before he locked the cockpit.
The pilot may have isolated himself with an oxygen supply and depressurised the aircraft, allowing him to carry out his fatal plan of killing 239 people onboard.
Keane added that the co-pilot Fariq would have had his phone left on after takeoff or alternatively switched it back on midflight to make an emergency call.
University of Adelaide senior lecturer in telecommunications Matthew Sorell believed the phone had been switched on before the aircraft neared Penang and that the handset performed a ‘new location area update’.
Sorell said, ‘This means the phone was on, and responded automatically when it detected the cell signal over Penang,.
The Malaysian authorities in the past slammed reports of a phone detection theory that first began in April 2014. Local media that reported it were accused of telling a ‘bare-faced lie’ and threatened with severe punishment.
However the confidential report was eventually leaked online and confirmed that authorities knew of the phone detection. No mention of the phone detection was made in the Factual Information Safety Investigation report when it was released in March 2015.