Pilot slams MH370 search team: “We knew from the get-up where the plane was”

The final search for Malaysian Airlines’ MH370, which went missing more than four years ago, has come to an end.

In the wake of the search ending, several pilots are suggesting they knew where the plane went down as soon as they heard the news of its disappearance.

In particular, former commercial pilot Byron Bailey, who flew for Emirate for 15 years, is criticising search teams for their failure to look in the right place.

Speaking to Miranda Devine during her podcast, Bryon said the search was roughly 1,200 km north of the location the aviation community believed the plane to be.

“Us pilots, we think we knew right from the getup and go where the aeroplane was,” Byron said.

“If they search there, I think there’s a 90 per cent chance they’ll find it.

“The people doing [the search] don’t have any aviation experience… but they have stubbornly refused for four years to search 130km south of where it ran out of fuel,” he added.

The comments come only days after Aussie officials rejected speculation the pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, was conscious during the plane’s crash.

Peter Foley from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) told a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra last week that the official explanation from the ATSB is that Zaharie was unconscious when the plane crashed into the ocean, reports The Guardian. 

“What they fail to understand is that while you don an oxygen mask and prevent the worst of the hypoxia situation, you are flying an aircraft at 40,000 feet,” Foley said, according to The Guardian.

“You are taking an aircraft from sea level to Mt Kosciuszko in 20 minutes, then you are talking it, over the course of a couple of minutes, to the height of Mt Everest plus 1,000 feet. You’ll get decompression sickness too.”

The search for MH370 has been plagued by conspiracies since it began, with several different theories circulating about the mysterious disappearance.

For Byron, the reason governments have failed to find the plane is due to the “massive liability and political problems”.

“[They realised] this could be a massive liability and political problem if it’s proved that the Muslim captain hijacked the airplane,” Byron said.

“[The Australian Government] is being cowardly and sticking its head in the sand… it’s a murder of 138 people and they’re ignoring that.”

“It’s about time the Chinese showed some interest” adding that he hoped the Chinese Government would “step in where we were too cowardly”.