A sensational new and detailed investigation into the disappearance of MH370 alleges Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah used Facebook to pursue Malaysian twin-sister models 34 years younger than him in the year before the tragic disappearance of the Boeing 777.
A News Corp investigation also reveals a psychologist believes Zaharie, the pilot-in-command when MH370 flew to its doom, “exhibited self-destructive and obsessive online behavior that should have raised a red flag with Malaysia Airlines”.
The investigation by multi Walkley Award-winning journalist Paul Toohey found that Zaharie, a married 53-year-old, did not bother to conceal his identity, and “openly chased much younger women on social media and risked his career by putting his name to rants against the ruling government, which owned the airline for which he flew”.
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It further undermines a move by Malaysian authorities to dismiss Zaharie as the culprit behind the aircraft’s March 8, 2014 disappearance with 239 people on board.
Malaysia’s final report into the crash released in July made no mention of Zaharie’s Facebook activity.
A Royal Malaysian Police report does mention Zaharie visiting the FB pages but does not mention what he said or how many times he accessed the pages. They simply dismissed the matter as not important.
Although Zaharie was described by acquaintances as “kind” and “easy going”, Toohey says he appeared to have had hit a mid-life roadblock and had become bored and reckless.
Toohey found that “across 2013, Zaharie posted 97 separate Facebook comments to the page of the Penang-based model Qi Min Lan, also known as Jasmin Min, who turned 18 that year. Zaharie did not know her personally, but was fixated.”
Many of the comments, such as “Damm it, you’re hot” were suggestive and carried, Toohey alleges, “the tone of a desperate man”.
Other include: “tasty”, “gorgeous” and “just shower.”
Toohey went back through the FB pages of Qi Min Lan and then had translated Captain Zaharie’s comments.
The posts, says Toohey, “reveal a previously uncharted dimension of the pilot’s intense character, as do a deeper look at his political activities.
“Zaharie was not merely politically active, as some have said. He was virulent, at one point labeling then prime minister Najib Razak a “moron” on his Facebook page.’’
Zaharie was a vocal supporter of the Malaysia People’s Justice Party (PKR) and had volunteered in the lead up to the 2013 national elections.
One theory is that he hijacked MH370 as a political protest against the imminent jailing of PKR leader Anwar Ibrahim, to whom he was distantly related, but he left no statement and his family has always denied the allegation.
In the month of April 2013, in the lead up to the elections, Zaharie posted 119 comments under his own name, all reflecting his disgust with Najib’s government as he urged citizens to action said Mr Toohey.
Toohey sought the opinion from UK-based psychologist Paul Dickens, whose Core Aviation Psychology is a world leader in assessing the mental health of commercial pilots.
Dickens said: “I think what you’re seeing is a degree of obsessional behavior mixed with recklessness, which is unusual for a pilot. He had a degree of obsessional behavior about the politics and the girl.”
The latest revelations come after The Australian’s South East Asia correspondent, Amanda Hodge, in 2016 revealed Zaharie had grown close to a married woman and her three children, one of whom had cerebral palsy, in the months before his disappearance.
The two messaged each other about a personal matter two days before the flight but the woman would not talk about it.
Fatima Pardi told The Australian Zaharie had not seemed stressed and that she had been interviewed four times by Malaysian investigators about the relationship and MH370.
Retired Malaysia Airlines chief pilot Nik Huzlan and long-time friend of Zaharie told the newspaper that the MH370 captain was the most likely culprit, by process of elimination, behind the plane’s disappearance
“The captain is the person best placed to have both the opportunity and capability,” Mr Huzlan said. “Then it goes down to the first officer, chief steward, No 1 cabin guy, then so on and so forth down the pecking order of the aeroplane staff and then passengers.”
