Spyhunter wrote:

I note Boeing have not denied my assertion, first made publicly in 2014.

And herein lies the delusion. Boeing doesn't, and shouldn't, care about "assertions" made by random nobodies on the internet.

I very much doubt there is anyone even aware of this amazing "assertion" within the company.

SomebodyInTLS wrote:

smaragdz wrote:

777Jet wrote:

It sure does:

'Report: MH370 pilot texted lady friend two days before tragedy'

So the pilot sent a text to a person? This is a groundbreaking development.

Not only that, but the lady in question has been forced to explain herself by people trying to make a mystery out of it and explicitly states that there is no mystery...

Yet "the mystery deepens..."

What would you expect her to do / say if he messaged her because he was having suicidal thoughts, looking for emotional support, or concerning a topic of a similar nature in which concerns about his state of mind would come up, given that she wants the speculation against him squashed?


She says her motivation to speak out was to quash speculation that Z did it yet by saying they had an exchange followed by saying she won't say what about because it will be misunderstood, IMHO that does the exact opposite and makes it look like she is covering up a topic that could be used against Z.


Another cover up coming out of Malaysia is hardly a surprise...

777Jet wrote:

SomebodyInTLS wrote:

smaragdz wrote:

So the pilot sent a text to a person? This is a groundbreaking development.

Not only that, but the lady in question has been forced to explain herself by people trying to make a mystery out of it and explicitly states that there is no mystery...

Yet "the mystery deepens..."

What would you expect her to do / say if he messaged her because he was having suicidal thoughts, looking for emotional support, or concerning a topic of a similar nature in which concerns about his state of mind would come up, given that she wants the speculation against him squashed?


She says her motivation to speak out was to quash speculation that Z did it yet by saying they had an exchange followed by saying she won't say what about because it will be misunderstood, IMHO that does the exact opposite and makes it look like she is covering up a topic that could be used against Z.


Another cover up coming out of Malaysia is hardly a surprise...

Or maybe, just maybe, it was a personal matter that has nothing to do with anything and she's just telling the truth.

Why start off by assuming she's lying? I mean seriously... from that perspective she literally can not say *anything* without automatically "deepening" a "mystery". Literally!

SomebodyInTLS wrote:

777Jet wrote:

SomebodyInTLS wrote:

Not only that, but the lady in question has been forced to explain herself by people trying to make a mystery out of it and explicitly states that there is no mystery...

Yet "the mystery deepens..."

What would you expect her to do / say if he messaged her because he was having suicidal thoughts, looking for emotional support, or concerning a topic of a similar nature in which concerns about his state of mind would come up, given that she wants the speculation against him squashed?


She says her motivation to speak out was to quash speculation that Z did it yet by saying they had an exchange followed by saying she won't say what about because it will be misunderstood, IMHO that does the exact opposite and makes it look like she is covering up a topic that could be used against Z.


Another cover up coming out of Malaysia is hardly a surprise...

Or maybe, just maybe, it was a personal matter that has nothing to do with anything and she's just telling the truth.

Why start off by assuming she's lying? I mean seriously... from that perspective she literally can not say *anything* without automatically "deepening" a "mystery". Literally!

Maybe.

To come out almost exactly two and a half years after the plane her fond friend Z was in command of vanished and say something to the effect of "Z and I had a conversation that evening but I'm not gonna say what it was about because it will be missunderstood" is very odd IMHO.

Why dangle the carrot now and just leave it dangling? If she really wanted to quash the speculation that Z did it why did she wait so long to say what little she said? Why now confirm a conversation took place but not say what it was about if it can help clear Z given the circumstances? Seriously... Humans will be humans. I can't blame anybody who thinks she is keeping secret a conversation that would go against Z.

777Jet wrote:

why did she wait so long to say what little she said? Why now confirm a conversation took place but not say what it was about if it can help clear Z given the circumstances?

I don't think she decided to speak up, I think some journalist started hounding her recently after digging up the fact she'd received this SMS.

The way the article reads is that she was fed up with being pestered, but doesn't want to talk about whatever it was - either because it will embarrass someone (e.g. gossip), is private (e.g. financial stuff, relationship advice) or simply out of principle (it's none of our business).

I expect its a forlorn hope on her part and that she won't be left alone until the secret's out - to her or someone else's detriment, probably.

777Jet wrote:

To come out almost exactly two and a half years after the plane her fond friend Z was in command of vanished and say something to the effect of "Z and I had a conversation that evening but I'm not gonna say what it was about because it will be missunderstood" is very odd IMHO.

She's a woman who claims to have had a close yet platonic relationship with a married man. I'd say there's far more obvious reasons she'd not want to make their final conversation public for fear of misunderstanding, an expression of affection perhaps that could be misread. Of course she might not be being entirely candid about the nature of their relationship. Maybe there was a text: "GOING 2 OZ WILL CRASH PLANE LUV U Z XXX". But on face value the article paints a picture of a rather decent man how has befriended a (presumably) single parent struggling to bring up a severely disabled child.

As for the supposed "Illicit" SMS just before the flight (as per Salttee or Oxymorph or whoever), the original Australian article quotes her as saying: "Last time I contacted him was two days ­before the tragedy". To quote you, "Not as groundbreaking a development as you reading and comprehending an entire post or article would be".

smaragdz wrote:

So the pilot sent a text to a person? This is a groundbreaking development.

SomebodyInTLS wrote:

people trying to make a mystery out of it and explicitly states that there is no mystery... Yet "the mystery deepens..."

The two of you seem to be using the ostrich technique of sticking your heads in the sand while ostensibly trying to understand what happened to MH-370 (or at least participating in a discussion with others who are trying to understand what happened to MH-370.)

There are several levels of interest to this story if one is trying to understand Zaharie's actions and motivations.

For example: many here have tried to put forth that Zaharie was not opposed to the Razak / Hishammuddin government which was in place at the time, but Zaharie's involvement with this woman once again supports that he was deeply invested in opposition to the government.

Also, a rather large unanswered question is to whom was Zaharie speaking when he placed a call to an unlisted (illegal in Malaysia) cell phone just before the flight to the SIO?

The (so far) hidden life of Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah is of prime interest to those interested in the MH-370 story.

BaconButty wrote:

She's a woman who claims to have had a close yet platonic relationship with a married man. I'd say there's far more obvious reasons she'd not want to make their final conversation public for fear of misunderstanding, an expression of affection perhaps that could be misread...............................

Or if one wants to hypothesize, maybe she was his contact or go between to those who were more active in opposition to the government. Zaharie doesn't appear to be a womanizer from what we've seen of his life's history.

BaconButty wrote:

the original Australian article quotes her as saying: "Last time I contacted him was two days ­before the tragedy".

But she doesn't say when was the last time he contacted her.

salttee wrote:

For example: many here have tried to put forth that Zaharie was not opposed to the Razak / Hishammuddin government which was in place at the time, but Zaharie's involvement with this woman once again supports that he was deeply invested in opposition to the government.

Straw man. I read all 30 odd MH370 threads and never saw that once. Of course he had those political leanings. What I struggle to comprehend is those who view this as remarkable. I'm a member of the UK Labour party (which is a joy at the moment I can assure you). But so are 500,000 others. I attend the odd constituency get-together. I know other party members, and speak to our MP for time to time. But it's hardly worth the import you give it.

salttee wrote:

BaconButty wrote:

She's a woman who claims to have had a close yet platonic relationship with a married man. I'd say there's far more obvious reasons she'd not want to make their final conversation public for fear of misunderstanding, an expression of affection perhaps that could be misread...............................

Or if one wants to hypothesize, maybe she was his contact or go between to those who were more active in opposition to the government. Zaharie doesn't appear to be a womanizer from what we've seen of his life's history.

You sound like Spycatcher here. The point I'm trying to make is that in the circumstances there are far more mundane reasons she might want to keep their final conversation private.

salttee wrote:

BaconButty wrote:

the original Australian article quotes her as saying: "Last time I contacted him was two days ­before the tragedy".

But she doesn't say when was the last time he contacted her.

Of course, but we're back to teapots in space.

As regards the phone call to Zaharie just before the flight came from the Sun and percolated around the world from there. That's the Sun. The Sun. If you can't understand why the claim might therefore lack credibility I can only assume you are unfamiliar with this organ.

salttee wrote:

The two of you seem to be using the ostrich technique of sticking your heads in the sand while ostensibly trying to understand what happened to MH-370 (or at least participating in a discussion with others who are trying to understand what happened to MH-370.)

Actually (lumping myself in with the other two) I'm intrigued. It's one of the great mysteries of our time. But I suspect you've reached a conclusion already. And I think it's worth bearing in mind what we don't know, and not falling foul of confirmation bias, which I believe is happening if you view that Australian article as supporting the "Pilot did it" hypothesis.

BaconButty wrote:

Straw man. I read all 30 odd MH370 threads and never saw that once. Of course he had those political leanings.

You call strawman, then you go right around to denying the strength or importance of his political stance in your next sentence.

"What I struggle to comprehend is those who view this as remarkable..............bla bla".

To diminish is to deny. You provide a wonderful example of hypocracy there.

BaconButty wrote:

The point I'm trying to make is that in the circumstances there are far more mundane reasons she might want to keep their final conversation private.

I don't see that you are trying to make a point as much as you are trying to deflect critical analysis of possible reasons for her to be so dumure about her contacts with Zaharie.
I see nothing to indicate a romantic involvement; Zaharie has left no indication of him being a romantic or a womanizer.

BaconButty wrote:

As regards the phone call to Zaharie just before the flight came from the Sun and percolated around the world from there.

Yet the story has quite a bit of detail that would have to have been made up whole cloth for it to have been faked at all. There were quite a few stories with poor or no sources that popped up from inside Malaysia in those early days and as far as I know they all either turned out to be true or remain as bits that continue to fit in with all that is known (zoom to high altitude, the turnback, low level flight over the peninsula, the turn west in the strait, the assertion that the Malaysian military tracked the flight - and more) but on the third day after the disappearance it is as if a steel wall came down in Malaysia and all leaks stopped.

BTW is "Of course, but we're back to teapots in space" supposed to be an ad hominem, or is it just another tack on your campaign to diminish or dismiss that which you don't understand or agree with?

BaconButty wrote:

But I suspect you've reached a conclusion already. And I think it's worth bearing in mind what we don't know, and not falling foul of confirmation bias, which I believe is happening if you view that Australian article as supporting the "Pilot did it" hypothesis.

Every salient bit of information I've come across in the MH-370 story has supported the theory that Zaharie intentionally took the plane to its grave in the SIO and nothing I've come across provides anything to counter that theory, so yes my mind is "made up" if you want to put it that way. The Australian article is just another shard in a long string of supporting data, information and informed opinion that all points in the same direction. Your use of "confirmation bias" is out of place, it is in fact a cheap shot that suits any debater without a debate.

salttee wrote:

BaconButty wrote:

Straw man. I read all 30 odd MH370 threads and never saw that once. Of course he had those political leanings.

You call strawman, then you go right around to denying the strength or importance of his political stance in your next sentence.

"What I struggle to comprehend is those who view this as remarkable..............bla bla".

To diminish is to deny. You provide a wonderful example of hypocracy there.

"To diminish is to deny" WTF are you on about? Are you incapable of simple comprehension? They're different things entirely. What you're doing is the very definition of the straw man logical fallacy. For this reason I don't intend to engage you in discussion any more. Life's too short.

BaconButty wrote:

"To diminish is to deny" WTF are you on about? Are you incapable of simple comprehension? They're different things entirely. What you're doing is the very definition of the straw man logical fallacy. For this reason I don't intend to engage you in discussion any more. Life's too short.

LOL
Bye!

SomebodyInTLS wrote:

The way the article reads is that she was fed up with being pestered, but doesn't want to talk about whatever it was - either because it will embarrass someone (e.g. gossip), is private (e.g. financial stuff, relationship advice) or simply out of principle (it's none of our business).

I would not entirely agree that "it's non of our business". Under normal circumstances, the contents of a private conversation would be none of our business. But this is screw up of MH370 we are talking about. My tax, and the tax of many others, is being used to look for this aircraft when the investigators are going off educated guesses at best to work out what to do next because they really don't have much of a clue. If the contents of that conversation indicated that Z was more likely to have done this intentionally, or less likely, then I would expect a decent person to reveal such, at least to the investigators (we don't know if the investigators were informed of the content of the conversation during any of their four interviews with her). At least the investigators should know. So, given that so much money is being spent on this search, especially money from Australian and Chinese tax payers who are not responsible for Malaysia's lost property, I would at least hope that this lady had told the investigators what the conversation was about. If not, I hope the Australian and Chinese that have been helping fund the search for the poor Malaysians would come out and say "no more funding - no more help" until people with information that might assist with finding MH370 stop keeping secrets. The incompetent, lying and corrupt Malaysian politicians botched this investigation from the start, so it is really no surprise that Malaysian citizens are doing the same.

Saltee, agree w you that everything points to captain Z.

I was just thinking to post a question if there was any hard evidence collected so far that could exonerate him.

Anybody have anything?

Yes, I realize we don't have enough to draw a firm final conclusion but most of what welnow for sure points to the cockpit.

BaconButty wrote:

Of course he had those political leanings. What I struggle to comprehend is those who view this as remarkable. I'm a member of the UK Labour party (which is a joy at the moment I can assure you). But so are 500,000 others. I attend the odd constituency get-together. I know other party members, and speak to our MP for time to time. But it's hardly worth the import you give it.

That's because you were not the Captain of a 777 with 238 other SOB that has been missing for two and a half years, which apparently flew thousands of miles in the opposite direction that is should have. In addition, the leader of the political party that you passionately support was not found guilty of sodomy and sentenced to jail just hours before the flight. No need to mention the facebook rants that stopped all of a sudden months before the flight, and the similar SIO fuel exhaustion route flown on the home sim before the files were deleted and the thing stopped working, again, months before the flight.

Hardly worth the import we give it, eh?

salttee wrote:

BaconButty wrote:

But I suspect you've reached a conclusion already. And I think it's worth bearing in mind what we don't know, and not falling foul of confirmation bias, which I believe is happening if you view that Australian article as supporting the "Pilot did it" hypothesis.

Every salient bit of information I've come across in the MH-370 story has supported the theory that Zaharie intentionally took the plane to its grave in the SIO and nothing I've come across provides anything to counter that theory, so yes my mind is "made up" if you want to put it that way.

The Australian article is just another shard in a long string of supporting data, information and informed opinion that all points in the same direction. Your use of "confirmation bias" is out of place, it is in fact a cheap shot that suits any debater without a debate.

Well said.

IMHO this article works against, not for, Z - so if the lady had hoped to quash speculation against Z, she failed. Another mark against Z.

Confirmation bias is the term a.net debaters who don't have a debate use - agreed!

Planeflyer wrote:

Saltee, agree w you that everything points to captain Z.

I was just thinking to post a question if there was any hard evidence collected so far that could exonerate him.

Anybody have anything?

Yes, I realize we don't have enough to draw a firm final conclusion but most of what welnow for sure points to the cockpit.

Apparently he did have a holiday planned in the future. However... wait for it... this information came out a long time after it was revealed that he was the only crew member on that flight without any future plans. Convenient, eh?

Planeflyer wrote:

I was just thinking to post a question if there was any hard evidence collected so far that could exonerate him.
Anybody have anything?

Good question, now you can listen to the deafening sound of silence.

Planeflyer wrote:

Yes, I realize we don't have enough to draw a firm final conclusion but most of what we know for sure points to the cockpit.

I don't buy the argument that "we don't have enough to draw a firm final conclusion"; the way that is stated is a logical impossibility. We can't draw a final conclusion until the end of time, so that's out the window. If we reduce it to the more realistic "we don't have enough to draw a firm conclusion" and throw out the meaningless adjective we are left with "we don't have enough to draw a conclusion", and I dispute that statement (I'm not picking on you here, I think that you stated the often heard premise accurately, so I feel comfortable analyzing your sentence, as I believe it represents the thoughts of many.)

A rational person who looks at all the available evidence is bound to come to a series of obvious conclusions beginning with the fact that the airliner has disappeared with 239 people on board. We know from the radar returns and corroborating Inmarsat data that it turned around at FIS turnover and flew back over Malaysia, turned west and flew until it was clear of Indonesian airspace where it turned south and flew until fuel exhaustion. We know that the plane had to have been under human control in order to have flown that flight path. We know that Zaharie was the person who received the release from Kulala Lumpur ATC and from the fact that he had taken over comms from the FO that there was something out of routine already taking place at that time. There are a dozen or so other incidents none of which are meaningless in the context of this airliner breaking radio contact and heading to the SIO that indicate that it had to have been Zaharie at the controls. These points have been made repeatedly in the original MH-370 thread, there is no need to repeat them here.

So now we look at Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah and we find a man who was obviously deeply troubled and who had attended a kangaroo court hearing the morning of the flight wherein his friend had a five year prison sentence upheld, effectively destroying his life and crushing the most threatening political opposition to the government which Zaharie was strongly opposed.

Unless you believe in ghosts or magical powers, there is no other conclusion to come to other than that Zaharie did it.

777Jet wrote:

That's because you were not the Captain of a 777 with 238 other ..................

We can always count on you to argue with the wingnuts. It's too bad that you do that, it detracts from the obvious fact that you've got the MH-370 story right.

oxymorph wrote:

777Jet wrote:

That's because you were not the Captain of a 777 with 238 other ..................

We can always count on you to argue with the wingnuts. It's too bad that you do that, it detracts from the obvious fact that you've got the MH-370 story right.

Thank you, sir.

It didn't take long to work out what most likely happened to MH370, as you know.

There is still hope for some of the wingnuts

Planeflyer wrote:

Saltee, agree w you that everything points to captain Z.

I was just thinking to post a question if there was any hard evidence collected so far that could exonerate him.

Anybody have anything?

Yes, I realize we don't have enough to draw a firm final conclusion but most of what welnow for sure points to the cockpit.

Is there any hard evidence so far that points to him doing it though? There are compelling reasons for why he could have done it, he was in one of the two seats that you needed to be in to fly MH370 to the SIO, but if you are asking for hard evidence of exoneration then surely the same standard should apply when asking if he is responsible as well.

777Jet wrote:

I would not entirely agree that "it's non of our business". Under normal circumstances, the contents of a private conversation would be none of our business. But this is screw up of MH370 we are talking about. My tax, and the tax of many others, is being used to look for this aircraft when the investigators are going off educated guesses at best to work out what to do next because they really don't have much of a clue. If the contents of that conversation indicated that Z was more likely to have done this intentionally, or less likely, then I would expect a decent person to reveal such, at least to the investigators (we don't know if the investigators were informed of the content of the conversation during any of their four interviews with her). At least the investigators should know. So, given that so much money is being spent on this search, especially money from Australian and Chinese tax payers who are not responsible for Malaysia's lost property, I would at least hope that this lady had told the investigators what the conversation was about. If not, I hope the Australian and Chinese that have been helping fund the search for the poor Malaysians would come out and say "no more funding - no more help" until people with information that might assist with finding MH370 stop keeping secrets. The incompetent, lying and corrupt Malaysian politicians botched this investigation from the start, so it is really no surprise that Malaysian citizens are doing the same.

Didn't she speak to investigators on multiple occasions already? Also, for a corrupt government (your words) they are slow on the uptake. If you want to take down your opponents you use every opportunity you can to show your opponent in bad light. If one of their supporters take a plane to the SIO you use it to show what you are dealing with when talking about the opposition and his supporters.

BaconButty wrote:

salttee wrote:

BaconButty wrote:

Straw man. I read all 30 odd MH370 threads and never saw that once. Of course he had those political leanings.

You call strawman, then you go right around to denying the strength or importance of his political stance in your next sentence.

"What I struggle to comprehend is those who view this as remarkable..............bla bla".

To diminish is to deny. You provide a wonderful example of hypocracy there.

"To diminish is to deny" WTF are you on about? Are you incapable of simple comprehension? They're different things entirely. What you're doing is the very definition of the straw man logical fallacy. For this reason I don't intend to engage you in discussion any more. Life's too short.

Not only that. His argument is what is called "an argument from silence" (argumentum ex silentio) at best.

I'd agree with you. MH370 is one of the major mysteries of our time. We better protect it as such and refrain from comming up with - for whatever reason - too speculative explanations to make up for our lack of real knowledge. The pilot did it class of theories is on its own right the most problematic as it can be supportet (almost) no matter what evidence we might get as long as it is as little as it is. Only if and when solid evidence is provided can any conclusion be attempted with any credibility.

777Jet wrote:

BaconButty wrote:

Of course he had those political leanings. What I struggle to comprehend is those who view this as remarkable. I'm a member of the UK Labour party (which is a joy at the moment I can assure you). But so are 500,000 others. I attend the odd constituency get-together. I know other party members, and speak to our MP for time to time. But it's hardly worth the import you give it.

That's because you were not the Captain of a 777 with 238 other SOB that has been missing for two and a half years, which apparently flew thousands of miles in the opposite direction that is should have. In addition, the leader of the political party that you passionately support was not found guilty of sodomy and sentenced to jail just hours before the flight. No need to mention the facebook rants that stopped all of a sudden months before the flight, and the similar SIO fuel exhaustion route flown on the home sim before the files were deleted and the thing stopped working, again, months before the flight.

Hardly worth the import we give it, eh?

The harder you stare at the little evidence you have - to the exclusion of everything else - the more important it becomes. One problem is that key elements in it cannot be used as evidence together (without very sofisticated speculation). The ending of Z's Facebook rants months before and the sentencing of Anwar on the very same day points in very different directions. The first towards a long premeditated action. The second towards a sudden decision.

Add to this that your evidence is taken out and looked at in isolation from the much larger and much more complicated picture where it belong including Z's weak (at least) religious beliefs and Anward's key position in the new Islamic movement that among other things were responsible for the introduction of whabistic tradition into Malaysia from Saudi Arabia. And not only that. Anwar has been a part of the established political system before his fall from grace. In other words: Z should be sacrificing his life for someone (if it was in US) like Hillary Clinton...

But however: For a theory to make sense as a theory it should be possible to point out what evidence could possibly falsify it. So without finding the wreckage of flight NH370 which evidence could make you give up the theory that the pilot did it? This is at least the very minimum requirement for any theory to be a theory at all and at least a little more than simply guesswork…..

There is no point lying to relatives by pretending that the aircraft somehow evaded Indian and Australian radar and flew to the SIO. In any event, most of the relatives are Chinese and would not be permitted by their government to follow this debate even if they wanted, given the restrictions on Internet access in China, which is not a free society.

Proponents of the SIO theory continue to assert it as fact even though it has been tested almost to destruction by a time and money-wasting search of the SIO which has lasted for two and a half years with no sonar contact remotely matching a 777 hull, whether intact or in pieces. As a poster rightly pointed out the 777 bits which are turning up, which BTW no one actually saw afloat, despite an extensive air search, are not consistent with a controlled ditching. If the plane turned turtle, which it would just about have to have done to cause major fin damage, we would expect to see a considerable quantity of wreckage on the surface.

Zeke: with respect I have never suggested that the door/hatch (I'm happy to all it a door, as long we don't confuse the larger doors on the port side of the 777 with the smaller, starboard doors) was sent to Boeing. Obviously it wasn't, indeed it wasn't even recovered, as no serious search of the SCS was ever mounted. My understanding is that the photographs of the wreckage were enhanced and compared digitally with Boeing's CAD records of the 777. We have a match to a 777, but not to a specific model.

Some posters, with respect, keep trying to belittle me, rather than dealing with my points logically and rationally. I have supplied critical intelligence on covert, offshore, Airbus subsidies to the Boeing Board, via a senior officer of the company, bringing European attacks on so-called military subsidies to Boeing to an end. Once they knew I had spoken to Boeing, at a hotel in Geneva, Switzerland, they were forced to back off. I have also had contact with the Boeing Phantom Works, Seal Beach CA facility.

Moreover I have acquitted Boeing in my book of asking the CIA to bring down De Havilland Comets Yoke Peter and Yoke Yoke, a charge made behind the scenes in England for 60 years. My published analysis of the economics of the civil 707 programme - that it actually cost Boeing money - has not been disputed. Shallower analysis of the 707 programme obsessed on overall sales and overlooked the huge expense of retooling the fuselage from the C-135 to the 707/C-137, and the large number of 707 variants. The CIA Station Chief in Rome in 1954, later assassinated by the DVD, was a friend of a friend. I was quite clear that he had no involvement in the placing of IEDs aboard either Comet.

abba wrote:

Not only that. His argument is what is called "an argument from silence" (argumentum ex silentio) at best.

Are you willing to explain the logic behind that statement or do you plan to disappear?

I will summarize the points being discussed, the statement BaconButty objected to was:

salttee wrote:

There are several levels of interest to this story if one is trying to understand Zaharie's actions and motivations. For example: many here have tried to put forth that Zaharie was not opposed to the Razak / Hishammuddin government which was in place at the time, but Zaharie's involvement with this woman once again supports that he was deeply invested in opposition to the government.

And this is fact. For most of the last two years here at this site, Zaharie's policical racadalism has been po pooed, the authenticity his Facebook posts questioned, his connection with Anwar questioned and even the fact that he attended Anwar's hearing denied. His political radicalism has been repeatedly dismissed as being something trivial. The reality is that Zaharie was an over the top radical extremist.

777Jet in particular has argued these points over and over and he always got pushback and was insulted for his efforts to bring truth to this forum. Yet now two and a half years later, the dust has all but settled and it is accepted by all the rational observers that Zaharie was in strong opposition to the government of Malaysia: some of his Facebook posts called for violence.

Now, this week, it comes out that he was involved with a woman who is also involved in the opposition movement: one more in a long line of points that highlight his political radicalism. And he was in telephone contact with her - this raises interest among those who have followed the MH-370 story because there was a phone conversation between Zaharie and an unlisted cell phone which had been purchased by an unknown woman - just before the tragic flight. This is salient information.

In response to my post I get more of the same po pooing that has gone on here for the last two and a half years.:

BaconButty wrote:

Straw man. I read all 30 odd MH370 threads and never saw that once. Of course he had those political leanings. What I struggle to comprehend is those who view this as remarkable. I'm a member of the UK Labour party (which is a joy at the moment I can assure you). But so are 500,000 others. I attend the odd constituency get-together. I know other party members, and speak to our MP for time to time. But it's hardly worth the import you give it.

He attempts to delegitimatize and dismiss the significant facts that Zaharie was an extreme radical, extreme to the point of calling for violence, and his friend and political hope had been destroyed before his eyes the same morning of the flight. And for a grand gesture BaconButty draws a comparison with British Labor vs Conservative party politics where he "attends the odd constituency get-together".

This would be laughable if it wasn't so tragic.

He then pulls the idea out of thin air that Zaharie and her were having an affair, obviously in an attempt to trivialize the importance of her appearance.

This whole coverup of the truth reeks of Stalinism, but it probably is just a lower level kind of tribalism, sort of like a Chicago cop covering for one of his buddies, or union workers banding together in opposition to management. Of course in this case it's just some misguided fools covering up for an airline pilot. And you are pulling the wool over nobody's eyes: the cat's out of the bag.

abba wrote:

The harder you stare at the little evidence you have - to the exclusion of everything else - the more important it becomes. One problem is that key elements in it cannot be used as evidence together (without very sofisticated speculation). The ending of Z's Facebook rants months before and the sentencing of Anwar on the very same day points in very different directions. The first towards a long premeditated action. The second towards a sudden decision.

In polite society this is what is known as dissembling.

abba wrote:

Add to this that your evidence is taken out and looked at in isolation from the much larger and much more complicated picture where it belong including Z's weak (at least) religious beliefs and Anward's key position in the new Islamic movement that among other things were responsible for the introduction of whabistic tradition into Malaysia from Saudi Arabia.

It is you who absolutely refuses to look at the evidence in its totality. You want to question every snippet in isolation and out of context, you even are willing to throw in utterly out of context jibberish like Wahhabism and Hillary just to sidetrack the conversation.

abba wrote:

Anwar has been a part of the established political system before his fall from grace.

It wasn't a fall from grace, it was a political assassination.

abba wrote:

For a theory to make sense as a theory it should be possible to point out what evidence could possibly falsify it. So without finding the wreckage of flight NH370 which evidence could make you give up the theory that the pilot did it? This is at least the very minimum requirement for any theory to be a theory at all and at least a little more than simply guesswork…..

This is merely an incoherent attempt at spewing fog.

777Jet wrote:

oxymorph wrote:

I was always wondering whatever happened to oxymorph...I guess now we know.

saltee wrote:

This whole coverup of the truth reeks of Stalinism, but it probably is just a lower level kind of tribalism

Just because some people chose to disagree with you doesn't mean a cover-up is afoot. Saying so simply shuts down the discussion and kills any chance of a civil discussion.

Why can't you admit that the evidence is still circumstantial? Yes Zaharie is a supporter of the opposition, but then again so too other MH pilots. I personally know 4 MH pilots who are ardent Anwar supporters & have voted for the Opposition & have also posted comments that if seen without context would seem violent. Had they been in the hot seat of MH370 then I'm certain they'd be suspects too. So until we find the plane, your theory is no stronger than Mr. Shrimpton's theory that MH370 was shot down by a Fakour-2 missile in the South China Sea.

TheFlyingDisk wrote:

Why can't you admit that the evidence is still circumstantial?

The word "circumstantial" must have a different meaning to you than it does to me. "Circumstantial" evidence is still evidence whether you appreciate it or not. There are probably more than a hundred known points of data that all line up and some of these points (such as Inmarsat) are themselves islands of other data points which also fit together. There are no known facts about the flight that exclude the obvious and accepted premise that the plane turned around at IGARI and flew the known path to the SIO. How many times do you need to be reminded that all the points of data line up and support each other in a way that paints an obvious and coherent picture?

TheFlyingDisk wrote:

Yes Zaharie is a supporter of the opposition, but then again so too other MH pilots. I personally know 4 MH pilots who are ardent Anwar supporters & have voted for the Opposition & have also posted comments that if seen without context would seem violent. Had they been in the hot seat of MH370 then I'm certain they'd be suspects too. So until we find the plane, your theory is no stronger than Mr. Shrimpton's theory that MH370 was shot down by a Fakour-2 missile in the South China Sea.

More po pooing - disingenuous po pooing at that.

There is evidence, false evidence and evidence that is withheld. People more at home in the field of espionage and counter espionage know, that there is nothing you can not fake and that all data is never made public, because making some things public would expose your intelligence gathering capability.

Ok, I've been lurking this thread since the beginning, now finally after making the effort to register, I though I would make my first contribution. Or an attempt to contribute at least. I have an alternate theory, partially proposed already in several contexts though.

So first of all, what doesn't "fit" in the current ruling theory if you ask me;
1. The pilot did it. I just find it extremely unlikely that such "light" political motive would result in something like this. There is no logic in making 300 people disappear as a revenge, without any kind of manifest, outburst, or even a hint. And this just to prove that Malaysia has a messed up government? No matter how much I twist and turn this - it makes no sense.

2. Missing plane. After a seafloor search of historical proportions, not a single shred of the plane has been found. So the location they are searching for must be wrong (Sherlock, I know).

3. No debris found towards east of the search site. If the search area for the plane would be correct, at least some parts of the plane would have drifted on the beaches of Australia, since the sea current in that area travels eastbound - even if it makes a U-turn at Australian coast. But none, not a single piece, everything has been found in African coast.

4. Two people (who actually exist) claim having seen a plane on fire that night, and went on record with that. But this is widely thought to be incorrect sightings. Why?


So what I actually think may have happened?

a. There was a malfunction of catastrophic proportions on the plane right after the handover from Kuala Lumpur. No clue what, but something possibly impacting the plane, which causes all the communications to fail, and ignite the plane (or an engine) on fire.

b. The pilots lose control, fight heavily to regain control - which causes the tight turns and drops and increases in altitude.

c. The plane carries on westbound, the pilots manage to stabilize the plane somehow, but lose eventually consciousness

d. Having possibly one engine still on fire, the plane starts to turn slowly towards the south - not sure if this could happen while the autopilot is engaged, if damage is bad enough.

e. The plane is seen on fire by the mentioned 2 people, flying lower than one would normally expect.

f. The crippled plane carries on towards the south, still continues to turn slowly to the left, eventually heading south-east to east. The fire might have died out by this time, the plane is slowly losing altitude, and finally crashes into the sea, in a remote area along the final ping. Just much further north than currently believed.

g. Considering the found debris, observations of the plane, the ocean currents, the pings, I'm suspecting that the final resting place of MH370 is right about here: 18°00'00.0"S 105°00'00.0"E

It is located roughly along the final ping ring, it was not a part of any of the search areas, from there the debris would be carried westbound only, scattering partially towards the northern part of Madagascar and Mozambique, as well as some carried further south, also to South Africa's coast. It is much closer than the current search area, so it would still be within range even with a damaged plane, flying in a lower altitude than thought. It would have still been dark in that area when the plane crashed, so very possible that nobody saw it going down.

Just my 2 cents.

salttee wrote:

abba wrote:

Not only that. His argument is what is called "an argument from silence" (argumentum ex silentio) at best.

Are you willing to explain the logic behind that statement or do you plan to disappear?

Just FYI - when people get fed up of responding to nonsense, it does not make the other party a "winner".

abba wrote:

777Jet wrote:

BaconButty wrote:

Of course he had those political leanings. What I struggle to comprehend is those who view this as remarkable. I'm a member of the UK Labour party (which is a joy at the moment I can assure you). But so are 500,000 others. I attend the odd constituency get-together. I know other party members, and speak to our MP for time to time. But it's hardly worth the import you give it.

That's because you were not the Captain of a 777 with 238 other SOB that has been missing for two and a half years, which apparently flew thousands of miles in the opposite direction that is should have. In addition, the leader of the political party that you passionately support was not found guilty of sodomy and sentenced to jail just hours before the flight. No need to mention the facebook rants that stopped all of a sudden months before the flight, and the similar SIO fuel exhaustion route flown on the home sim before the files were deleted and the thing stopped working, again, months before the flight.

Hardly worth the import we give it, eh?

The harder you stare at the little evidence you have - to the exclusion of everything else - the more important it becomes. One problem is that key elements in it cannot be used as evidence together (without very sofisticated speculation). The ending of Z's Facebook rants months before and the sentencing of Anwar on the very same day points in very different directions. The first towards a long premeditated action. The second towards a sudden decision.

The stopping of the rants on facebook indicate the possibility to me that he thought that he had better stop leaving behind anything that could be used against him in case he does indeed go through with something stupid (if he knew he could have used the 'limit past post audience' FB function, or whatever it is called, that hides all posts over 6 months old). The Anwar verdict on the evening of the flight indicated the tipping point to me. That was the point of no return.

salttee wrote:

And this is fact. For most of the last two years here at this site, Zaharie's policical racadalism has been po pooed, the authenticity his Facebook posts questioned, his connection with Anwar questioned and even the fact that he attended Anwar's hearing denied.

Sorry, but that is utter bollocks. I don't recall anyone EVER disputing that he was a supporter of the opposition, even quite an active one.

His political radicalism has been repeatedly dismissed as being something trivial. The reality is that Zaharie was an over the top radical extremist.

And more bollocks.

Did you actually follow Malaysian politics before MH370? Well I did! There is a significant chunk of Malaysian society which is very against the government and very dissatisfied with how things are being run there. I'm talking a third to a half of the population, including several people I know personally.

Politics out there is very partisan and those that are fed up enough with the status quo to campaign for the opposition are almost by default labelled as troublemakers by MPs, the police and other civil servants. Things have been very heated at times in parliament and during (crackdowns on) opposition rallies etc. - I'm not at all surprised if his Facebook rants at those times were a bit over the top. But in context of how angry some people are - it's just the state of the politics there.

But campaigning against the current cronyism and corruption hardly makes you a "radical extremist". Are you thinking along the lines of IS or something? Because if that's the case then I really have no clue how you come to that conclusion...

Spyhunter wrote:

There is no point lying to relatives by pretending that the aircraft somehow evaded Indian and Australian radar and flew to the SIO.

Proponents of the SIO theory continue to assert it as fact even though it has been tested almost to destruction by a time and money-wasting search of the SIO which has lasted for two and a half years with no sonar contact remotely matching a 777 hull, whether intact or in pieces.

As a poster rightly pointed out the 777 bits which are turning up, which BTW no one actually saw afloat, despite an extensive air search, are not consistent with a controlled ditching. If the plane turned turtle, which it would just about have to have done to cause major fin damage, we would expect to see a considerable quantity of wreckage on the surface.

Some posters, with respect, keep trying to belittle me, rather than dealing with my points logically and rationally.

1)""There is no point lying to relatives by pretending that the aircraft somehow""... was shot down over the South China Sea. There

2) You talk about this sonar as if it is Gods perfect gift to the world, yet the real investigators are considering that the scan might have missed the plane. They have sonar contacts of interest that they are looking at again in case the plane was missed. This is fact. You can find recent articles on it. If the sonar was so good this would not need to happen. Maybe there are better sonars and they went on the cheap with the made in China sonar, but that is a different matter.

3) At least the bits and pieces have turned up around the Indian Ocean. Nothing around the SCS, which is surrounded by much closer land. Your theory is partly underpinned by a floating item that was never found or, despite your claims, confirmed as coming from a 777. You still have not proven to us that the SCS item was confirmed by Boeing, or by any authority for that matter, as coming from a 777 (saying "my understanding" on "my information" does not count, sorry).

4) I've made the point above about the SCS item several times and you continue to ignore it. You also haven't explained why a shred of the plane hasn't washed up on any of the land surrounding the SCS, which is closer to your alleged crash site area than the land around the Indian Ocean is to the SIO crash site area.

salttee wrote:

777Jet in particular has argued these points over and over and he always got pushback and was insulted for his efforts to bring truth to this forum.

For quite some time there were a few other members of the 'Z most likely did it' camp.

I would like to give credit to Sipadan, Tailsikd and Oxymorph, in particular, for their effort.

Carlos01 wrote:

So what I actually think may have happened?

a. There was a malfunction of catastrophic proportions on the plane right after the handover from Kuala Lumpur. No clue what, but something possibly impacting the plane, which causes all the communications to fail, and ignite the plane (or an engine) on fire.

b. The pilots lose control, fight heavily to regain control - which causes the tight turns and drops and increases in altitude.

c. The plane carries on westbound, the pilots manage to stabilize the plane somehow, but lose eventually consciousness

d. Having possibly one engine still on fire, the plane starts to turn slowly towards the south - not sure if this could happen while the autopilot is engaged, if damage is bad enough.

e. The plane is seen on fire by the mentioned 2 people, flying lower than one would normally expect.

f. The crippled plane carries on towards the south, still continues to turn slowly to the left, eventually heading south-east to east. The fire might have died out by this time, the plane is slowly losing altitude, and finally crashes into the sea, in a remote area along the final ping. Just much further north than currently believed.

g. Considering the found debris, observations of the plane, the ocean currents, the pings, I'm suspecting that the final resting place of MH370 is right about here: 18°00'00.0"S 105°00'00.0"E

Just my 2 cents.

What you are describing is technically impossible.
Someone entered the waypoints in the FMC during the time you claim the pilots tried to stabilze the plane and lost conciousness.
If anyone had actually seen a burning plane, lower than one would normally expect, it would have downed max. 10-20mins later, not hours.
Please read all the previous threads for MH370 especially with all the valuable contributions by Mandala499 and zeke among others.
There is no other logical explanation other than someone was at the controls and deliberatly chose this route.
The only point up to debate from my point of view is whether the Pilot was actively ditching the plane in the water, which some evidence suggests or whether the A/C crashed after running out of fuel.....

InsideMan wrote:

What you are describing is technically impossible.
Someone entered the waypoints in the FMC during the time you claim the pilots tried to stabilze the plane and lost conciousness.
If anyone had actually seen a burning plane, lower than one would normally expect, it would have downed max. 10-20mins later, not hours.
Please read all the previous threads for MH370 especially with all the valuable contributions by Mandala499 and zeke among others.

I am not an expert like the ones you mentioned, by far not on the level as many people here when it comes to aviation. My specialty by profession is to smell where things are not right, and then to connect the dots using facts so that it starts to makes sense. In this case, the dots do not connect, actual facts and what has supposedly happened do not quite align.

What really happened on the plane, how, when, and by who - we simply don't know until the orange boxes are found - if even then. Heck, even what Spyhunter is saying would not contradict with my theory - apart from the fact that the plane did not go physically down at South China Sea. Did the plane fly via the waypoints? Maybe, possibly even. The source for that claim is apparently radar data, which to my knowledge has not been made available to public.

It's in the end simple mathematics. If you add 1+1+1+1, where every single '1' is a fact, but suddenly the outcome turns out to be '3', then there is something wrong with the facts! Meaning, then by definition they are no longer facts.

I developed my theory following that principle, since something in all the things that we "know" appears to be wrong at least to some degree. Having said that, it could also be that I am wrong and what we know today starts to make sense one day.

You know,Carlos,I think we are on the same wavelength.Facts do not add up because they are wrong with a purpose: to cover up and hide the simple truth: there was a catastrophic failure of some sort on the aircraft and the flight ended up somewhere, certainly not in the SIO but somewhere else. I do not believe the pilot-did-it theory (it is so unreadable) nor do I believe the shoot-down theory (it is so transparent). When I worked at a naval base in Athens in the civil personnel dept. for two years,I saw the net of tunnels,sixty meters under a hill resembling a huge submarine,out of a James Bond movie. In the morning I used go to the hilltop,walked around the helicopter pad and admired the view,Athens and the suburbs coming to life at 07.30-you can google it at the northern tip of Hymmetus mountain. Gzm was there. I have also seen something else: when the personnel went on pension the management made them read or even sign a statement saying: "I won't reveal what I have seen,worked or heard" and so on. How can I believe somebody who reveals such classified information using his picture? He is certainly on a mission here,in order to somehow exonerate himself by accusing the Chinese. Those people are here to protect "the Boeing product" as Tailskid said once,in the face of strong antagonism from the Airbus new models. That's all folks. The Boeing product is so perfect that it is unthinkable to even remotely consider technical issues.

The problem with a technical fault is, that it would need to be so severe that the transponder and radio went down at the same moment and it must have internally disabled the satellite communications without destroying the whole satcom system. It must have been so bad that the plane did not try to reach an alternate landing field, but it must have been so limited in scope that the plane was able to fly the recorded flight path and fly to a location so remote that the emergency pingers were never detected.

And regarding the Indian radar, who says they did not pick-up MH370 they might just have not noticed or cared. Put yourself in the shoes of the radar operator it is the nasty time just before morning, you are based on a remote out-post, your commanding officer is soundly asleep, as is everybody in India. You see something which seems to be an airliner on your radar and it is not coming to your airspace. Do you raise the alarm, record the event, or go get a coffee and think that the civil authorities will know what they are doing...

gzm wrote:

Facts do not add up because they are wrong with a purpose: to cover up and hide the simple truth.....................

What facts don't add up?

gzm wrote:

You know,Carlos,I think we are on the same wavelength.Facts do not add up because they are wrong with a purpose: to cover up and hide the simple truth: there was a catastrophic failure of some sort on the aircraft and the flight ended up somewhere, certainly not in the SIO but somewhere else. I do not believe the pilot-did-it theory (it is so unreadable) nor do I believe the shoot-down theory (it is so transparent). When I worked at a naval base in Athens in the civil personnel dept. for two years,I saw the net of tunnels,sixty meters under a hill resembling a huge submarine,out of a James Bond movie. In the morning I used go to the hilltop,walked around the helicopter pad and admired the view,Athens and the suburbs coming to life at 07.30-you can google it at the northern tip of Hymmetus mountain. Gzm was there. I have also seen something else: when the personnel went on pension the management made them read or even sign a statement saying: "I won't reveal what I have seen,worked or heard" and so on. How can I believe somebody who reveals such classified information using his picture? He is certainly on a mission here,in order to somehow exonerate himself by accusing the Chinese. Those people are here to protect "the Boeing product" as Tailskid said once,in the face of strong antagonism from the Airbus new models. That's all folks. The Boeing product is so perfect that it is unthinkable to even remotely consider technical issues.

You state that the pilot did it scenario is "so unreadable", but let me assure you that it is that nonsense that you just posted which is so unreadable. You claim that people have an agenda to protect the Boeing product? Really, given what is known about MH370? Which posters are paid by Boeing? It is clear that you are trying to taint the 777 and that should not come as a surprise. You are from Europe. So is the Airbus. You must be trying to make Airbus' competition look bad. There you go. How stupid did that sound? Just as stupid as your nonsense claim that "people are here to protect the Boeing product". You have now shown your true colours. I hope you are getting a nice pension from Airbus. There was nothing wrong with the 777 that operated flight MH370. It flew for the ammount the of time it should have given the fuel load according to the data. The plane was fine, unlike one of the people on board controlling it. Everything adds up that the cause of MH370 was human intervention. Whether or not you accept it, human intervention has brought down commercial aircraft full of people both before and after MH370. Shocker!

seahawk wrote:

The problem with a technical fault is, that it would need to be so severe that the transponder and radio went down at the same moment and it must have internally disabled the satellite communications without destroying the whole satcom system. It must have been so bad that the plane did not try to reach an alternate landing field, but it must have been so limited in scope that the plane was able to fly the recorded flight path and fly to a location so remote that the emergency pingers were never detected.

And regarding the Indian radar, who says they did not pick-up MH370 they might just have not noticed or cared. Put yourself in the shoes of the radar operator it is the nasty time just before morning, you are based on a remote out-post, your commanding officer is soundly asleep, as is everybody in India. You see something which seems to be an airliner on your radar and it is not coming to your airspace. Do you raise the alarm, record the event, or go get a coffee and think that the civil authorities will know what they are doing...

Agreed.

We know what the Malaysian radar operators did

Right, gzm. Captain Shah and his crew died in the line of duty.

Responding to Carlos 01's thoughtful post, your theory is reasonable, with respect, but as Seahawk observes does not explain the lack of a Mayday call, nor the ACARS failure, readily explained by radio jamming and software sabotage.

MH 370 was scrapped in Diego Garcia. That was the only airfield in range where they could land unnoticed and still have time to scrap the aircraft.

gzm wrote:

You accuse a professional who died in the hour of duty. Prove it if you can or stop smearing his reputation. It is a shame...

Was Andreas Lubitz a professional in the end? What about Tsu Way Ming? Gamil El-Batouty? Auburn Calloway?

If any of the pilots of MH370 were responsible for murdering the 238 other people on that plane they most certainly were not professionals.

It seems that it has taken another special person to join these threads for you to come back. I think y'all have something in common

You have never presented an even half detailed scenario of what happened that can tie in with what is known about MH370. All you do is criticize those who make the most sense. The real shame in here is the way you carry on, evidenced by the nonsense you post - nonsense that doesn't even make sense half of the time. At least Spyhunter has presented a full and detailed scenario. You just post nonsense, and continue to say 'but a pilot wouldn't do something like that' despite the precedents that you continue to ignore...

Spyhunter wrote:

as Seahawk observes does not explain the lack of a Mayday call, nor the ACARS failure, readily explained by radio jamming and software sabotage.

More easily explained by a person in the cockpit switching them off.

The problem is that people believe to have the answer to what happened before the plane is found. At the moment you can not rule out any theoretical reason, even the plane being attacked, flown to a remote or secret airfield up to the notion that aliens captured it and flew it into space. At the moment I think the technical fault is the theory that is most difficult to explain, because it means that you would believe that the sat data is correct and the plane actually flew that route. It is already not too easy to come up with a technical fault that turns of the radios, comms and sat comms within a few seconds, but this fault must also have disabled the crew and it must also have caused the plane to fly a route that should not have been programmed into the autopilot. Yet it must have caused not enough damage that the plane crashed, even when doing turns and changing flight levels. Imho from all possible theories the technical fault is the one you can best check without finding the plane. And to be honest I can not come up with a possible scenario which would have caused what we are presented by the media regarding flight direction and flight time.

seahawk wrote:

It is already not too easy to come up with a technical fault that turns of the radios, comms and sat comms within a few seconds, but this fault must also have disabled the crew and it must also have caused the plane to fly a route that should not have been programmed into the autopilot. Yet it must have caused not enough damage that the plane crashed, even when doing turns and changing flight levels.

Don't forget that out of the systems that went offline around the same time, only the SatCom came back online... and just when the aircraft rounded the tip of Sumatra and pointed towards nowhere.

Please read my post again:

There is no other logical explanation other than someone was at the controls and deliberatly chose this route.

It certainly is not a fact, that the captain did it. I don't care about his political views or Simulator data, but it is pretty irrefutible, that someone was at the controls of that flight at least until all waypoints were programmed.

InsideMan wrote:

There is no other logical explanation other than someone was at the controls and deliberatly chose this route.

Spyhunter might disagree

gzm wrote:

You accuse a professional who died in the hour of duty. Prove it if you can or stop smearing his reputation. It is a shame...

The assertion that a mass murderer "died in the hour of duty" is offensive; Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah abandoned any resemblance of "duty" at 1:19:29 when he said “good night Malaysian Three Seven Zero” and began the turnaround.

This blind zealot defense of Zaharie is puzzling. Do the people who expouse this wilful ignorance of facts think they are defending airline employees? That makes no sense, because Zaharie murdered 10 flight attendants - he left their children without mothers: how can that be a defense for airline employees? If people who want to deny the obvious think they are defending pilots everywhere, how can they explain their defense of the man who murdered Fariq Abdul Hamid? Fariq was a young guy with his whole life before him, and he was a pilot, in fact he was an actual "airline pilot" he had flown other types as captain, he was a FO on the 777 only because he was new to the type. So how can the defense of a man who murdered an airline captain (acting in his "hour of duty") be a defense of airline pilots?

The answer is : it can't. This zealous defense of the undefendable has to stem from personal or political motivations, not an altruistic defense of someone who's guilt is in doubt. I realize that there are people who play head games with themselves and cling to the esoteric concept that "it can't be proved", as if this was all just an intellectual exercise as in trying to decide how many angels can dance on the head of a pin; but for anyone with their feet on the ground, the accumulation of evidence shows that the flight to the SIO had to have been piloted by none other than Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah. For those who want to deny the radar data from multiple sources as well as the corroborating Inmarsat data, and deny the known flight path - I call intentional fraud.

Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah was no more acting in the line of duty on that night of March in 2014 than the murderers of Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi were defending their nation in March of 2006.

To defend Zaharie for any reason other than raw ignorance or blind stupidity is to share in his guilt. I don't think either of those defenses apply to anyone here, so I have to ask what could be the motivation for a person to jump on board with a mass murderer? Would you also jump to Putin's defense in the case of MH-17 in the name of counterrevolution?

Where does your zealotry end?