Malaysian government said MH370 was ‘murder-suicide by pilot’, former Australian PM Tony Abbott claims
- The flight disappeared on March 8, 2014 with 239 people on board, including 153 Chinese passengers, prompting a vast search and rescue operation
- Former Australian PM Tony Abbott’s remarks are part of a documentary. He also said the Malaysian government never provided alternative explanations
Tony Abbott, who was in office at the time of the plane’s 2014 disappearance, made the comments as part of a documentary to be aired later this week by Sky News.
“My very clear understanding, from the very top levels of the Malaysian government, is that from very, very early on here they thought it was murder-suicide by the pilot,” he said in a preview of the documentary released by Sky News.
The Boeing 777 flight, carrying 239 people on board, vanished from radar less than 40 minutes after taking off from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014. Of the 227 passengers, 153 were Chinese citizens.
In late 2016, and again in August 2017, wreckage of the plane was found along the coast of Madagascar, an island nation off Africa.
However, an independent international investigation concluded in 2017 it was not possible to conclude why the plane crashed because the flight data recorder boxes were never found.