RE-RELEASE: Missing MH370 Part 2

**Discussion beings at 4:00**

We are counting down our favorite episodes of the year.  On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 took off in the early hours of the morning as the red eye flight from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, with an intended destination of Beijing, China.  There were 227 passengers on board, with 12 crew members.  The pilot in command, 53 year old Captain Zaharie Shah, was performing a final instructional flight for 27 year old co-pilot, first officer Fariq Hamid.  It was a clear, calm night, and the flight was initially uneventful.  At cruising altitude of 35,000 feet, the flight was leaving Malaysian Air Space and was instructed to transfer to the air traffic control tower in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.  At 0119, Captain Shah radioed the Air Traffic Controllers in Malaysia “Good night, Malaysian 370”.  That was the last verbal contact with anyone on the plane.   Approximately 103 seconds later, the aircraft went dark and vanished from all radar screens in Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, and Ho Chi Minh City.  There were two transponders onboard the plane, so to disappear, both transponders would need to cease functioning – either by catastrophic failure or by manual override by someone on the plane.  It was over 20 minutes before anyone noted the plane was missing.  It did not arrive for it’s 6:30 ETA, and only had enough fuel to fly until ~ 8:15 AM.  The most expensive search and rescue operation in aviation history was initiated. To this day, we do not know where the airplane is, or what happened to the 239 souls on board.  An extensive safety report was released which did not answer many questions and had inconclusive findings.  They denied suspecting any crew was involved, and reported that air traffic control was delayed in noting the missing plane.  Theories vary, from a hijacking or suicide mission, to a military operation, and a plethora of questions still exist.   One thing is for sure, evidence of shoddy investigative work and potential cover-ups abound.  What really happened to MH370 in the early morning hours of March 8 , 2014?

Transcript

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She put in a request to hear about Hitler being alive and well in South America.

We will definitely do that for her.

Hey, girl, it's already on the list.

So is it time for our drink check?

OK, Colleen, when are you drinking?

One of the viral Sleepy Girl Mocktails.

Ooh, a bit of tart cherry juice.

Kait made it.

What did you put in it, Kait?

I put a little tart cherry juice.

I guess it can't really be called the Sleepy Girl Mocktail because it doesn't have the magnesium powder in it.

But it's tart cherry juice and sparkling grapefruit or like sparkling water that's grapefruit flavored.

Yeah, it's loud.

Very good.

I'm also drinking that.

And you guys mixed these up in anticipation of recording.

So you're not going to fall asleep?

Yeah, we won't.

Well, it depends on the conversation.

Ooh.

Bourbon Boy made me an old-fashioned.

I didn't watch him make it.

Do we know what bourbon he put in here, Kait?

I actually don't.

I didn't watch him make it either.

Okay, but it is delicious.

He even garnished with a nice ice ball and a little cherry.

I will say he was slacking.

He was out of orange peels.

Boo.

Boo.

But it actually is probably one of the tastiest.

He makes the best hot toddies, and he was going to make one, and I was like, you know what, let's do something different.

And I would say he knocked it out of the ballpark.

So thanks, Bourbon Boy.

Yeah, thanks, Bourbon Boy.

You're the best, Bourbon Boy.

All right.

So before you get into it, we will give you a brief summary.

But again, if you haven't listened to last week's episode, go back and listen.

We had a lot of information last week on the disappearance of Malaysian flight MH370.

And today we're just going to get into the theories that are out there and what we each think happened.

So again, give a listen to the summary.

Here we go.

On March 8th, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 took off in the early hours of the morning as the red-eye flight from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia with an intended destination of Beijing, China.

There were 227 passengers on board with 12 crew members.

The pilot command, 53-year-old captain Zaharie Shah, was performing a final instructional flight for 27-year-old co-pilot, First Officer Fariq Hamid.

The flight was initially uneventful at a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet.

The flight was leaving Malaysian airspace and was instructed to transfer to the air traffic control tower in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.

At 1.19, Captain Shah radioed the air traffic controllers in Malaysia, Good night, Malaysian 370.

That was the last verbal contact with anyone on the plane.

Ah, boom, boom, boom.

Approximately 103 seconds later, the aircraft went dark and vanished from all radar screens in Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City.

Oh my gosh.

There were two transponders on board the plane.

So to disappear, both transponders would need to cease functioning either by catastrophic failure or by manual override by someone on the plane.

It was over 20 minutes before anyone noted the plane was missing.

It did not arrive for its 630 a.m.

ETA and only had enough fuel to fly until about 815 a.m.

The most expensive search and rescue operation in aviation history was initiated.

To this day, we do not know where the airplane is or what happened to the 239 souls on board.

An extensive safety report was released, which did not answer many questions and did have inconclusive findings.

They denied suspecting any crew was involved and reported that air traffic controllers were delayed in noting the missing plane.

Theories vary from a hijacking or suicide mission to a military operation and a plethora of questions still exist.

One thing is for sure, evidence of shoddy investigative work and potential cover-ups abound.

What really happened to MH370 in the early mornings of March 8th, 2014?

So, as a reminder, we had this disappearance in 2014, and a year goes by, and we have not found the plane.

Right, no one knows what happened.

And so that's kind of when the conspiracy theories start coming.

Right, of course.

So we talked about the pilot theory, which was one of Colleen's theories.

Right, she had like a combination theory.

Remind us of your theory, Colleen.

So my first thought was that it was more of a suicidal situation, and then now after hearing more of the information, I think it was a purposeful suicide situation, where he felt like he had to crash the plane for something.

Like maybe he knew the plane was carrying something or that it was a mission kind of situation.

Okay.

Well, we'll talk about the pilot theory.

I mentioned last week about the questions surrounding the status of his marriage.

Oh, yeah.

But what I didn't mention is that he was a pretty vocal political guy.

As I said, he had quite a social media presence, and he followed the leader of this opposition party who would have actually been tried and sentenced the date prior for sodomy.

And there were some reports that Captain Shah might have actually been in the courtroom for this verdict reading.

So people theorize the motivation here could have been political.

Wait, sentenced for sodomy?

Like, what is this?

Is this like 1500s?

Yeah, I know that it's just sodomy, but I thought in court cases, it usually referenced like non-consensual acts of sodomy.

So it was like an assault situation.

You know what?

We have a friend of the pod, Emily, who works in the court system with sexual offenders, and I'm going to ask her, so stand by.

As of October 1st, 2023, there are 12 US states with statutes criminalizing consensual sodomy.

But I confirmed, like, I know we have all these like weird laws that are on the books from like forever ago.

Right.

But I confirmed that like no one actually gets charged anymore unless it's an assault, and she agreed.

It's technically illegal, even if consensual, but nobody's ever charged on it unless it's non-consensual.

But this was in Malaysia, his court case.

Yeah.

I don't know what their rules are.

I don't know if they have like homophobia there or whatever.

Yeah, you're right.

Okay.

The update is, I did a little Google search here.

The political leader was apparently guilty of sodomizing a male aide.

Do we know if that was with or without his consent?

This article doesn't say so.

Who knows?

Maybe opinions and laws are different in Malaysia.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Well, anyway, back on track.

Thank you for that legal consult, Emily.

The reason I have kind of a hard time assuming that this is like politically driven on his part is that there was no note, there was no message.

Like you would think the purpose, if you wanted to die a martyr, right?

Like he needs to say what he's dying for.

So yeah, I have a hard time just believing this was like politically driven since we never found a message.

And there was really no evidence in his personal life of him being an extremist.

I mean, he posted political stuff like everyone.

I mean, not like us.

Yeah, no, no, no, we don't post one.

No, we don't.

But we all have friends who do, right?

Right, right, right.

Doesn't necessarily mean that they're like, they're going to kill all these people.

I don't know.

I just don't buy that theory, but some people do.

But you said all the other Malaysian air crew members who worked with him didn't believe he was involved?

Yeah, there was also some other crazy theories, like maybe there was a UFO.

Maybe it was stuck in a black hole, like sucked into a black hole.

It could be somewhere in the Cambodian jungle.

Wait a second.

The Americans didn't.

I don't like that theory.

I think the Russians did it, not the Americans.

Yeah, all of that.

That's a theory.

I also like the black hole theory.

That's fun.

Yeah.

There's also a time travel theory for you, Kait.

Oh, my.

Give it to me.

Loki?

Like, did it go into the time tunnel?

It always goes back to Marvel.

No.

No more Loki.

I don't know about that.

But the pilot theory.

We'll get to the pilot theory first.

So again, motivation for this would be potentially protesting the incarceration of that opposition leader that he had supported the day prior.

So people think he might have wanted to make a statement.

Again, I don't think it's much of a statement if you don't give your motivation.

And I guess that theory kind of strengthened with that 22-minute holding pattern that came out a few years ago, because perhaps he was talking to somebody, corresponding with somebody, and he was giving some kind of message.

The government, perhaps?

And they just, like, covered it up and didn't tell us?

That's a likely story.

Yeah, that definitely makes sense, especially now that the Prime Minister of Australia was like, yeah, it was a murder-suicide, like you do.

Also, as Captain Fred pointed out, it is not in the airline's best interest to let people know they had a crazy pilot working for them, particularly one who would, like, you know, was one of their top pilots.

And Malaysia Airlines is pretty critical to the Malaysian economy.

I read that they're, like, pretty proud of their airline.

Yeah, I mean, that makes sense.

They wouldn't, like, want to, they would want to cover it up and, like, not have the negative connotation associated with it.

Yeah.

So if we believe the pilot theory, regardless of whether his motivation was suicide or politics or whatever, the theory goes that, you know, he says good night to the air traffic controllers in Malaysia, and he's supposed to transfer over to Ho Chi Minh Air Traffic Control.

And at that point, he says to his co-pilot, you know, hey, do you want to go grab us some coffee?

Yeah, like, yeah, just, hey, man, go get us some coffee, help us get us through this overnight flight.

Right, or maybe he, like, goes to the bathroom.

Regardless, the co-pilot gets up, leaves the cockpit, and the pilot locks him out.

And we all know post 9-11, there's like a lot of security of the cockpit door.

So once you're out of the cockpit, you have to be left back in.

There's an override code, and if that code is not acknowledged within 30 seconds, then the door is going to open.

So this is like a backup plan.

So I guess if you're, if like the pilot is unconscious and there's no one in the cockpit, you can like plug in this override code.

And if he doesn't block your override within 30 seconds, then the door will open and you can go in.

But for the most part, like if he's consciously doesn't want you to come in, he can keep you out of the cockpit.

So now he has control of the plane.

And at that point, Shah took the opportunity to turn off all of his radar and transponders.

Oh, and then he chose that spot because he knew it was quote, like no man's land or whatever.

And that would buy him more time.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah, that would make sense if he was planning this.

Yeah.

And we talked about how the transponders going off would have had to either be a catastrophic event or manually done.

And then the SATCOM got turned off.

And one thing that points to this being potentially manually done is that to turn off the SATCOM, you have to turn off the generator.

The generator is controlled by a knob that has multiple settings.

And if it was a catastrophic event, it would have just gone from like on to off.

But it didn't.

It went very quickly through a series of other options indicating that it was mainly turned off, like the knob was turned off past multiple settings.

And by turning off the generator, he cuts off all SATCOMs because again, the SATCOM was kind of like the second thing that they came out and used to track a little bit more of the flight path.

This is also how I told you it would prevent passengers from being able to make phone calls or send text messages.

Oh my gosh.

That's terrifying.

The theory is out there that he depressurized the cabin because, okay, this is going to stress you out.

No.

No.

So when the little yellow face masks come out of the ceiling from a depressurization, first of all, we understand depressurization, right?

Right.

Okay.

So when these yellow masks come out, it buys you about 10 minutes of time and that is it.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I knew that wasn't like a life support situation.

The goal is to get to give you 10 minutes for this plane to get down to a lower altitude where you don't need the supplemental oxygen, right?

Okay.

But the crew has tanks that will last them more like 45 minutes to an hour.

And then the pilots have their own tanks.

And if there's only one pilot, they have 27 hours worth of oxygen.

So I guess if there's two pilots, it's like, you know, almost 14 hours.

So one of the theories is that he depressurizes the cabin.

He's got his auction supply and he just has to wait for everyone else to kind of lose consciousness.

Yeah.

Oh no.

Because if you don't put on your oxygen, you're gonna lose consciousness within like seconds at 35,000 feet.

Right.

But you'll just kind of go to sleep.

So they think he opened this outflow valve, which would cause a sudden pressure change.

And then within 45 minutes, he knows that everyone on the plane will be dead.

Jesus.

My gosh, that's awful.

It's like they're suffocating, but they don't know it, right?

Yeah, I think it's probably not an unpleasant way to go.

But I think you get hypoxic and delirious and kind of just go to sleep.

And we do know he made that aggressive U-turn.

We know that could not have been done by autopilot.

The other thing that makes this theory interesting is that he had had his oxygen supply topped off that day.

Wait, like he asked them to do that?

I don't know.

I don't know whether he requested that or whether that was routine, but they did say right before the flight, they topped off that tank.

That's crazy.

Yeah, that's suspicious.

Yeah.

He had a full 27 hours of oxygen from the cockpit.

If that's true and it's premeditated, then that's disgusting.

That's why I have a hard time with this theory because it's one thing to be suicidal, but it's a whole other thing to kill 300 people.

Right.

Let's take down hundreds of people at the time.

Yeah, there was a two-year-old on board.

I don't know.

The other part of the story is that he did have this flight simulator at home.

And pretty early on, the American FBI and the American CIA are like investigating and they take this flight simulator from his house and study it.

And they find this path that looks to be the same route as we think this plane took.

Initially, that information is not released.

Two and a half years go by and then there's this leak.

Like, oh yeah, you know, the path is the same, but I guess it turns out that it's not really accurate, that it's more like the simulator just took kind of like averaged some different routes that he had, you know, practiced in the past and kind of plotted it out.

So it looks sort of like the flight course, but not necessarily like he did one consecutive flight that was the exact flight course.

And it's not really perfect.

It's just kind of a mismatch with these flights.

I also, I just love that it was like the American FBI and the American CIA.

Yeah, so I hear them like, of course they're involved.

Yeah, it was suspicious.

Well, and that's, I think, why we'll talk about some theories that maybe the Americans were involved.

But yeah, so again, this flight simulation that was released is kind of just a mishmash of flights that he had simulated, not necessarily one flight.

So the Malaysians, when this information lead to people were outraged, like, oh my gosh, he had this flight path on his flight simulator.

They're like, no, it's not true.

We don't have any evidence that he practiced this route.

Yeah, but that is something that people are like, well, that's super sketchy.

When you look at the images which they released, the simulated route does look kind of similar to the predicted flight path, but again, probably not accurate.

But also like why the odd release of the information, like they didn't say anything.

And then it kind of got leaked and then they kind of like, well, yeah, yeah, yeah, but like don't believe that information.

So are they covering something up?

Yeah.

Or were they just thinking like, if we release this data, then the public is going to misinterpret it.

Yeah.

So that's why we're going to withhold it.

Just don't be suspicious.

Yeah.

I don't know what that's about.

Let's not give the public all of the facts because they can't handle all the facts.

They're not smart enough to understand.

We're going to withhold information.

Yeah.

All right.

There is a story about a co-pilot in an Ethiopian airline who hijacked a plane in 2014.

And he waited for the captain to go to the bathroom and then locked him out.

And he was able to divert to Switzerland to seek asylum.

So this has happened before where like one pilot locks the other pilot out of the cockpit and hijacks the plane.

And if you do believe this theory, then again remember, he had to turn the generator off to shut the SATCOM off.

But he can't just fly for six hours without the generator on because the plane is going to overheat.

So at some point he had to turn it back on.

And we do know that at some point the SATCOM came back on.

And so, you know, that could potentially explain that.

And so maybe he just wanted to disappear.

He turns off his generator, lets some time go on, and then turns the generator back on.

And he just thought, well, no, it's going to be able to see me.

Because we almost didn't figure out the flight path until years later.

So what do you guys think?

I don't know.

I definitely feel like there was something purposeful done.

But again, like, I just can't imagine it was homicidal.

I really can't.

Yeah, I know.

The Ethiopian airline story is like kind of interesting.

Like, what was he fleeing?

That's my thought right now.

Again, Captain Shah, like, really knows his job.

So he would know all of these things if he had remeditated this.

Like, he would know that he had 27 hours of oxygen.

He would know that he would have to turn off the generator to lose SATCOM.

Like, he knows all of these things.

So you are right.

You're right.

There's a theory that the plane ran out of fuel and lost power just before 8, 10 a.m.

And the emergency engine automatically cut on to help the pilot, assuming there is one.

And remember, there was that last handshake ping at 8, 11 a.m.

So every other ping had come from Australia.

Like, Australia initiates a handshake and sends it to the plane.

But that 8, 11 ping is the only ping that originated from the plane and went to Australia.

So, like, perhaps the system had shut down and then came back on.

And when it came back on, the plane sends this ping to Australia, like, we're here at 8, 11.

Oh, wow.

That's creepy.

Now, again, when I read all these articles and look at different theories about how the plane went down, there's a lot of discussion about whether it was a controlled or uncontrolled descent.

The people who interpreted the pings claim that it tells them that the plane was in a violent nosedive, which would mean the flapperon that we talked about, you know.

I think that's such a funny name.

The flapperon would have flown off the plane before it hit the ocean.

That's why when this debris washed ashore, it wasn't damaged.

Yeah, but didn't we talk about also that maybe it wasn't a violent nosedive and hopefully everyone had just sort of passed away before they hit the ocean?

If it wasn't a violent nosedive?

Right, because the violent nosedive would make all this debris splash everywhere, right?

The plane would hit the-

Unless it was going so aggressively that it's like as it went through the air, pieces of the plane flew off, and so they didn't have the aggressive contact with the ocean that they thought would have caused the plane to like-

Splinter.

Yeah.

It's literally crazy though.

Yeah.

It's also just like my worst nightmare.

I know.

I'm trying not to think too hard about it.

I'm like, I will fly again.

Always have a contingency plan on an airplane even though there's no way I'm going to survive it if we didn't freeze off.

Well, we know Colleen's good because she's already scoped at her allies.

I look for my people.

So that is the intentional pilot theory.

And Captain Fred again validated that all of that makes sense and could have happened.

I mean, it does make sense.

Yeah.

I want it to have happened.

Yeah.

It's literally sociopathic.

Yeah.

But again, that's kind of why I have a hard time believing that.

I mean, as I just went over with you guys, I was like, wait, maybe this is pretty valid, but I cannot believe that this guy lived a normal life with his wife and kids and all these coworkers who loved him.

And you'd have to be such a sociopath to fool all these people and then wake up one day and just be like, I'm going to go out and take down a plane full of people.

I don't know.

But I also know pilots often hide any kind of health issues or mental health issues because it's pretty stringent to pass your physical and everything.

And you want to keep flying.

Right.

I mean, he could have very easily had been struggling and putting up in front.

You know what I mean?

All his family says, oh, he was fine.

Everybody's fine.

But maybe he actually wasn't fine and kept it to himself and purposely did all this.

I don't know.

It's so sad, though.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think his family would certainly not want to believe that their dad is capable of killing all of these people.

And I don't know if there was any life insurance or anything associated here.

But I feel like there's probably some kind of financial incentive for this to be like an accidental death instead of a murder-suicide.

But again, aren't sociopaths masters at mimicking people's feelings and tricking people?

So if everyone says from the outside, he looked normal, I think sociopaths excel at that.

So I don't think you can miscount any of that.

No, you're right.

And I think there might also be some kind of, again, I'm not really familiar with the Malaysian culture, but I don't know if also there was some aspect of suicide being shameful.

And so maybe, again, kind of incentivizing the family and people close to him to kind of, you know, that couldn't happen.

That couldn't happen.

Yeah.

I think sometimes there's a lot of shame in suicide too, not like shame for the individual because they can't feel shame anymore, but maybe from like a family like take like this is we were supposed to be this perfect family and somebody, you know, committed suicide, maybe they're trying to cover it up or something like that.

I don't know.

I don't know what the culture is like, you know?

Yeah, me neither.

Like mental health in general, it's already like it's it's becoming more well known in America, but other cultures, I don't know.

Yeah.

So, an alternative theory was that there could have been some sort of sudden disruption leading to a catastrophic failure.

So like, if there was cargo that caught on fire, specifically these electronics in the cargo bed were being shipped from, are you ready for it?

Oh God.

Motorola.

What?

You're lying.

Shut up.

The Motorola that, if you look at Star Trek, it's just doubled and flipped upside down.

Shout out Michael the Uber driver.

We haven't mentioned Michael the Uber driver in a couple of episodes.

It all comes back to Motorola.

I do not trust Motorola.

I cannot.

I feel like my mom's first cell phone was a Motorola.

But this is like kind of what I thought, that he might have been transporting something on purpose and then crashing the plane on purpose.

I think.

Yeah.

Well, the one theory is that these were lithium batteries from Motorola that are being transported and they could have caught on fire because there was a UPS flight in 2010 that crashed in Dubai.

Because a pallet of lithium batteries combusted.

But again, it's hard to support like that.

Again, if you believe that debris we found or that the American with Russian ties found, if you believe that was real debris from the plane, because again, only a couple pieces were maybe able to be thoroughly like validated, there really weren't any burn marks.

I think one piece had like three teeny tiny little burn marks, but you would expect like all the debris to just be incinerated, right?

There was also a Swiss airline in 1988 that had an electrical fire from wiring issues, and it kind of resented in a very similar way with that sudden loss of contact.

But yeah, hard to say.

Yeah.

But like the satellite phone got turned back on, right?

Like, I feel like that can't happen if the airplane, you know.

Yeah, like, there couldn't have been combustion because like, they wouldn't have made it to that 811 mark if they had set on fire.

Right.

Yeah, like, seven hours prior, whatever.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm a no-go with the fire.

Yeah.

OK.

With you.

So then back to that cargo, though, the alternative theory with the cargo, which, which again, this is like on track with Colleen's theory.

I'm always right.

So there were 2.6 tons of electronics for Motorola.

Oh my goodness.

And it was delivered to the aircraft under escort right before takeoff.

Under escort?

I'm sorry, what?

Very clearly some important...

Wait, so they like wheeled this stuff out onto like the tarmac?

Yeah.

That's like, like escorted like with guards?

He definitely knew about this, the pilot.

Like there's no way he wasn't aware of this on this plane.

Yeah, and apparently they did not scan any of these through security.

No, no way.

He knew about this.

So he knew.

Yeah, this is weird.

This is making it weirder to me.

So the theory is that there was a problem, this was like problematic cargo that was going to China and perhaps the US wanted to take it down.

Of course.

Trying to prevent China from getting this technology.

This theory was actually presented on the Netflix documentary.

I told you I wasn't going to go too much into the Netflix theories because I thought they were pretty out there.

But it's kind of sad.

There was this Frenchman and he was working abroad, and he was going to meet his family for vacation.

His wife and his two youngest kids were on the MH370, and he got off of his plane, and they met him on the plane, and they were like, hey, hate to tell you that your wife and two kids were on a missing plane right now.

Oh my gosh.

So I can't imagine, right?

And he's like, then I had to call my oldest son, who was studying abroad, and he was like, my son lost it on the phone.

Oh my gosh.

I cannot imagine.

Yeah.

It's like, it's terrible.

But I feel like he's like very focused on figuring out what happened.

So he hired a lawyer because he says in France, once you file like a claiming court, they have to investigate.

And he filed his complaint as like a terrorism accusation because then he gets jumped to number one.

And so he's trying to get them to investigate what really happened.

But he has this writer who's on his side, who presented this theory.

So the Frenchman says that this anonymous source came to him and said, quote, the Americans know full well what happened.

Oh, the Americans, I don't know.

Because the Americans know exactly what happened.

So they claim that there were a bunch of American AWACS in the area.

And so those are the Boeing planes that have like that mushroom, like the radar mushroom, and it monitors surveillance, monitors everything within 600 kilometers underneath the plane.

So allegedly, there were two of these in the area.

And then the reporter goes, so I was like, talking to this guy who said, you know, AWACS have phenomenal jamming capabilities.

What does that even mean?

Like they can jam the radio of the other plane.

But I found multiple sources who say that's inaccurate, that they don't have that ability.

But this is a theory that was presented in the documentary.

We, you know, they radio, and we know you've got this technology, we don't want China to have it, and you've got to like, you know, land this plane.

And the pilot is like, screw you, I'm not listening to you, and just kind of goes about his business.

But his radio had been jammed, and so we can't radio for help or let anyone know what's going on.

And they're approaching, like, you know, Chinese airspace, and so the Americans say, like, it's now or never, we've got to do something.

So it's like the idea is that, like, the Americans hijacked the plane, but they weren't actually, like, in the plane, they just kind of, like, shot them down kind of situation.

Right, and you know, the FBI and the CIA were involved in the investigation, so.

Yeah, I don't like this theory.

Yeah, they had to have been something weird on this plane.

And he was definitely thinking to himself, I'm gonna be a national hero, I'm gonna die for what I believe in.

And like, I personally think he probably depressurized or whatever the cabin, because he didn't want the passengers to suffer through the crash, because he knew he was definitely gonna have to crash it.

Yeah, well then, that kind of goes to the theory about when he crashed, whether or not you think he was alive when the plane crashed into the ocean or not.

And you know, like, even if this was a suicide mission, he probably would have depressurized the cabin.

Because like we said, that'd just be like a more peaceful way to go.

But anyway, those are the pilot theories.

All right, you guys ready for some passenger theories?

Oh, heck yeah.

All right, now what?

So there are two passengers who are traveling with fake passports.

So initially they thought perhaps they had hijacked this plane, but they were cleared.

They were deemed to be escaping Iran and seeking asylum.

They did not appear to have any nefarious motivation, so they were kind of cleared.

And then there was also this flight engineer who could have had the expertise to do this, because again, they were like, who on this plane could have done it?

The pilot was one, and then they were like, or this guy, this flight engineer, the only two people who would have had the knowledge to do this.

But they investigated the flight engineer, and he was cleared, so yeah.

So like three suspects and cleared.

Allegedly cleared.

Okay, and I actually probably should have mentioned this in the previous episode, but I got a little bombshell for you guys.

Wait, what?

Love a bombshell.

A bombshell.

Because four months after this flight went missing, let's keep in mind that Malaysia Airlines had not had an accident since the 90s.

Oh wow.

Now we have this massive loss of life and equipment.

So four months later, Malaysian flight MH17 is shot down at the Ukraine border by surface-to-air missile.

It was another 777, and nearly 300 people crashed in Ukraine near the Russian border.

Oh my gosh.

It was a flight that was coming from Amsterdam heading towards Kuala Lumpur.

So the Russians said, oh no, we didn't have anything to do with that.

Right, right, right.

Yeah.

I believe that.

Yeah.

So two accidents in four months when you haven't had an issue in two decades.

So of course, the Russians denied any involvement.

And then on November 17th, 2022, there was a trial in Abstencia in the Netherlands, and they did find two Russians and a Ukrainian separatist guilty of murdering all 298 people on flight MH17.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

Russia was in control of the separatist forces fighting in eastern Ukraine at that time.

So because, like I said, these are both Boeing 777s, both Malaysian Airlines, there were some conspiracy theories that perhaps the plane that crashed in Ukraine was actually flight 370.

Kind of like your Titanic bait and switch.

Oh.

They said that the plane that crashed in Ukraine had structural similarities to MH370.

They were both 777s, but.

No, I don't think that's the truth.

I don't think it's the same plane.

Yeah, I don't really buy this one.

I think it's just pretty coincidental.

They belonged to the same airline and were the same plane.

But the reason I think this theory kind of gained traction also is because when I showed you guys those seven rings.

From the pings?

Yeah.

Rings from the pings.

The seven rings from the pings, we all just assumed it went south over the ocean.

But if you looked at that, there's an alternative path it could have taken, which would have been north.

And again, I think we had later data like the whisper data.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

And the flapperon.

I think we have other data that came out later that kind of confirms it more likely went south and went down in the ocean.

But before we had all that information, when they just had those seven rings, it could have gone north.

And if it had gone north, then it would have ended up in Kazakhstan, which is a client state of Russia.

And there were three Russians on board this flight.

Oh my God.

Yeah.

And one was in first class.

So there actually was also a theory that perhaps they hijacked the plane.

And at the time this was happening, Russian troops had invaded Crimea, and it was all over the news.

And so one of the theories is, did they make this plane disappear as a distraction?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Don't look over here.

Look over there.

Right.

Because we know they do that.

And apparently all the news about Crimea disappeared when this came out, because it just took over the news.

But again, then what would have happened to all those people?

Right.

Yeah.

I don't know.

There's a lot of holes in that theory for me.

I guess they could have done it in like the same way the pilot could have, but I don't know.

Seems too sus.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But the expected flight path now, again, now that we have more information with the whisper data and everything, doesn't really match it.

But so Kait, you thought it was Russian hijackers previously, right?

Right.

That was my theory.

Do you still feel that way?

No.

Okay.

What do you think now?

I think it was a murder-suicide.

Okay.

Well, here's what I think.

I will say that now as I present this information to you, it makes me a little bit more like maybe it was a murder-suicide.

You guys might be talking me around to your theory.

That's right.

But as I was researching, I was pretty invested in this theory I'll present here.

I just could not get past like it's one thing to kill yourself, another to kill 300 people.

Right.

Again, what is his motivation?

If it's political, why is there no letter?

Why is there no evidence of what his motivation was?

But if you go off the theory that there was something put on the plane and he was like, I don't agree with this, then...

Right.

Then he circles for 22 minutes.

Then the Malaysian government's like, yeah, it was a murder-suicide.

But here's my theory going into this recording.

Let me defend myself before you guys roll your eyes at me.

I believe that there was a hypoxic event, and this was all accidental.

Accidental.

Oh, okay.

Because I used to work on airplanes, and we would have to go into these simulations.

They would make it gradually hypoxic, and you would have to do tasks and things to see how you could do.

And so you would watch other people, and you would just see how sloppy they get.

But then when it's your turn, and you're getting sloppy, you don't necessarily think you're being sloppy.

Yeah, and there have been cases.

The most famous one was an American trans-airflight in 1996, where the plane did not depressurize.

And so you go through your checklist, and you do your tasks, and it starts alarming.

And the first thing you're supposed to do is flip to the page of your checklist, and you go through it, and step one is always don your oxygen.

But in this case, there were like four crew members, and only one of them donned their oxygen.

And then they all just kept passing out, and like one would put oxygen on the other, but then that person would pass out, and then the person who had the action on them would then kind of come too.

Anyway, so in the end, they did all regain consciousness.

It was like puff, puff, pass with oxygen.

Exactly.

That's good.

That's good.

Exactly.

So you think.

And so in the end, they were all able to kind of like, you know, land this plane.

It was all okay.

But it just goes to show how, like, even if you practice and practice and practice, and it's like, I mean, it should just be like memorization.

This alarm goes off, you flip to your checklist, step one, put on your oxygen.

But it's so easy to get confused and become irrational if you're hypoxic.

I think it seems like they really that that U-turn and the loss of contact happened pretty close after they reached their cruising altitude.

So my theory was maybe they just forgot to pressurize the plane.

And so it was just like this gradual hypoxia.

And that's why hers radio transmissions were incorrect.

Because he's confused.

Yeah.

But then maybe there was maybe something happened, or maybe there was a kind of a rapid depressurization or something.

And so he tries to do this U-turn to get back because he wants to go back and land.

But now he's like so hypoxic, he's getting sloppy, he can't land.

And then I don't know, maybe he intentionally or unintentionally set the cruise control.

Yeah, but I don't like that doesn't explain the 22-minute holding pattern that they think happened.

I know.

Like, Kait just circled.

Kait, you love to hear this.

You are right.

I can't really explain the holding pattern.

One of the engines would have had to have failed before the other.

That would make you kind of like, you know, free fall spiral like that.

But Captain Fred said that if the plane was functioning as it's supposed to, that wouldn't happen, that you have multiple fuel tanks, and they, you know, fuel both engines.

And so when the engines failed, they should fail at the same time.

But if there was some kind of issue with the plane where it didn't work like it was supposed to, I guess that could cause the free fall.

You are 100% correct.

I can't, I cannot explain that.

But like, it is an interesting theory.

I do like it.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know too.

I haven't, I haven't really looked into this, but I wonder if there's some way also where they could have like, could have like passed out and leaned over and like forced the throttle to one side and that's what's causing it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was thinking that at some point, like he, you know, dies and his arm just kind of slips.

Yeah.

And it just circles.

But I did not run that theory by Captain Fred, so I don't know if that makes sense.

Yeah.

And then there was this theory that perhaps it wasn't Shah but Fariq.

Like maybe Shah-

Oh, the co-pilot?

Yeah.

Like this is all accidental.

So maybe Shah is like, you know what, we finished our communication to the moment.

We're at our cruising altitude, which again, as I explained last week, is apparently like, you know, that's the easy part of the flight.

You just set your cruise control and sit back and relax until it's time to land.

And so maybe he decides, like now's a good chance for me to go to the bathroom.

So he gets up, he goes to the bathroom, and then some kind of emergency happened, this rapid decompression or something.

And he couldn't get into the cockpit because again, there's like that 30 second, you know, way to get back in.

And so he's in the bathroom and it's like, do I put this yellow mask on or do I just like go for it and try to get back into the cockpit so I can be a hero?

And so maybe, you know, he wasn't able to get back into the cockpit.

And now this guy who's got 39 flight hours in this plane.

Has no idea what to do.

Yeah, he's like got to handle this emergency.

Yeah, that sounds pretty realistic.

But also like there's something up with those lithium batteries.

I do not trust it.

There's just something very weird about it.

And even if it wasn't lithium batteries, or if it was something else, why didn't they get checked by security?

Right.

And why were they escorted onto the plane?

It doesn't make any sense.

Well, coming into this, I was adamant that it was accidental, and that this is what happened.

But I do like this theory that you guys are presenting, and I, from a non-academic perspective, I just really appreciate that in your theory, there's no bad guys either.

Yeah, it was just a tragic accident.

Yeah, and I feel like it's just much easier for me to comprehend that this guy that appears so nice when you see him on YouTube and you hear his family and friends talk about him, that he was trying to be a hero, than that this guy just took down a plane of almost 300 people all because he was, what, lonely?

Right.

I don't know.

Find it hard to believe.

There was also another flight that was more recent in 2005.

It was a Cyprus airline that was on a flight to Athens, and they failed to pressurize the aircraft to take off.

So that's kind of like the theory that I presented, and they didn't recognize it either.

So I think by the time the alarms go off, they've pretty much already are starved of oxygen, and they're already losing consciousness and falling asleep.

And then that plane continued to fly for over two hours, and then it eventually crashed into a mountain range.

So again, I can believe that this happened.

I believe that is a possible cause, but I'm having a hard time accounting for those 22 minutes.

And again, I think that the hypoxia makes sense, and then that aggressive U-turn makes sense if it's like we've got to go back.

Right, right.

But to have the time to turn around and to not radio anybody, I don't know.

Unless they were confused.

Also remember, the other plane, that other plane did get a transmission on the emergency frequency, but couldn't make out what was being said.

Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.

I'm still pretty adamant that he knew what he was carrying on this plane, and he turned it around at that exact spot where he knew it was like the, quote, no man's land.

And because he knew that that would be the perfect spot to lose communication, because I don't know, that's just, I feel like there's too many plot points that make sense for that.

Yeah, and like, what about the 27 hours of oxygen in the cockpit?

Well, yeah, he would have had to have not donned his oxygen.

Like it would have had to have been that he was too confused or too slow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He didn't have anyone to tell him to puff up past.

Yeah, I mean, like you said, I think an expert should have run his checklist.

But again, if he was having some mild hypoxia while he was ascending, maybe confused.

I really also just want to give him the benefit of the doubt because it's just nicer to believe that this devastating loss of life was like not malicious, you know.

Yeah, I mean, like continuing with my theory, I think he just if he did do it, it was done nobly.

Like he thought to himself, I cannot in good faith give this to the Chinese government or whatever.

Like he clearly was a got like a politically involved man.

So I'm sure he knew of conflicts in the world and knew better than that.

And he I mean, he very could have easily refused to have flown.

You know, I mean, like could have refused at the gate.

I'm sure there was a lot of pressure in getting that material material escorted onto the plane.

I'm not sure, but.

So do you think he knew before he took off what he had on the plane?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I think so.

So you think he devised this plane before he took off?

Yeah.

Well, I feel like it might have been like a contingency.

Like he probably well, to me, it makes if you like follow the flight pattern, maybe he's like trying to figure out what to do the whole time.

Yeah.

I mean, like it was probably like you have to do this.

And yeah, he probably looked normal in the CCTV security footage or whatever.

But maybe he found out while he was on the plane, like that maybe that's why he didn't look super freaked out in the security footage.

Yeah.

I guess like you said, like right before.

Yeah.

Takeoff.

Yeah.

In the end, I think he's noble.

Yeah.

I think it's probably like he's in the air and he's like, I cannot give this to whatever government was going to get this.

And so he had to think of the most noble thing.

And he came up with what he came up with.

And he was like, I'm going to turn this plane around.

I'm not going to let this car go get anywhere where it's not supposed to be.

I'm going to oppose the government, which I don't really know anything about the Malaysian government.

I don't know what kind of conflict they have, what kind of relations they have with China or anything.

Yeah, I don't either.

Google told me that there is some corruption in Malaysia, but again, I feel really uneducated about it, so I can't really comment on that.

Yeah.

And I just believe in the end, he did the most humane thing to those people and the most, I don't know, cutting off the oxygen and making them go to sleep.

I feel like he did things in a certain order to make it so it was the least horrific accident for them.

Yeah.

He did have a couple of friends.

I mean, I told you we had a couple of friends who threw him under the bus because they were like, yeah, he was banging the flight attendants.

Oh yeah.

That's not a very good friend.

No.

But he also had these friends said, I do think that when more information comes out, they're like, I can't explain what happened, but I think when we get more information, we're going to find out that he was a hero.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

I would hope so because the YouTube videos that he would post and things like that, he was just like so sweet and cute.

I mean, there's like no way this man was corrupt.

He's a precious little man.

From the three seconds of him being like, here's my YouTube video.

He was like, hey guys, here's my YouTube video for community service.

Like he's so cute.

Okay.

So Colleen and Kait, you guys both think it was like a heroic noble thing.

Yeah.

Yes.

100%.

Yeah.

What about you, Megan?

What do you still think in your hypoxia at this point?

I don't know, you guys.

Again, I was pretty firm on this hypoxia.

The 22 minutes really throws everything off unless someone can tell us that like, you know, he passed out or died or was somehow incapacitated and just like forced the throttle in a certain direction.

That's why the plane was circling.

Yeah.

Again, I don't know if that's possible.

I'll have to run that by Captain Fred.

If we have any other pilots out there listening, please feel free to let us know.

I really didn't research that aspect.

Yeah.

I mean, the 22 minutes definitely throws everything off.

And I guess I was thinking if he really was trying to figure out how to handle this, maybe, I don't know, something just got sprung on him.

Yeah.

I guess that also kind of makes sense with like the wandering like Kait was saying, that he's just like trying to figure out what to do.

And again, that he passed by the island he was born at and grew up on for like one last view, knowing that like this wasn't going to end well.

Yeah.

I feel like maybe he was like, you know, what do I do now?

And he's like flying around and like maybe, you know, I think earlier we talked about like him actually like cutting off the oxygen to the passengers so that they would like not know what he was doing.

So maybe he like mercifully sort of let them get hypoxic, fall asleep, and then he's just in the cockpit like, you know.

Yeah, I think it's a peaceful way to go if you have to go, like a little giddy, you know, a little sleepy.

He definitely would have cut their oxygen sooner than later.

Like, I mean, we'll never know, but.

Also, though, with this whole theory that like he cut the oxygen off to everybody.

Can you imagine?

It's kind of like Michael Collins being behind the moon without any radio access to the to the world and like by himself and how lonely that was scary.

Can you imagine being the only living soul on a plane with like 300 people back there that are just like dead?

Oh, yeah, that's yeah, that's terrifying.

Also, like maybe he's like, I just killed these 300 people and now I have to just go back.

Like I know that I am flying to my certain death.

So let me just go past these.

Like you said, let me just go past these islands that I was born at.

Take one more look at them and I don't know.

I feel like the 22 minutes of circling is him like, you know, sicken it to Malaysian government.

Like whatever you put on this plane, it's not getting to its destination.

Okay.

And like it's on your hands, Malaysian government.

And maybe he was like really sticking it to us.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So sad.

So dark.

It is.

It's really sad.

Sorry, guys.

This was a pretty heavy episode, not a ton of giggling.

But yeah, intriguing, right?

It was super intriguing.

So what's our poll going to be, Kait?

Okay.

I don't even know where to start.

Okay.

Let me think.

Maybe we do like hypoxia, like Megan, you know.

We do a malicious murder-suicide where this was all premeditated, and he sort of had this idea when he got on this plane.

Or you could do this like sort of heroic murder-suicide where there was something on the plane, and he had to do the noble thing, which is also the terrible noble thing, you know?

Or hijackers, like the Russian hijackers, or American hijackers, I mean, yeah.

I guess there's like four categories.

Yes.

Or if you guys have any other categories.

We'll do another category.

Yeah, write in to us if you have a theory.

I mean, this is like you could theorize forever on this.

If really.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

That's it for this week, guys.

Thanks for sticking with us for two weeks.

Colleen's on the social media.

She's going to post a lot of photos for you guys.

I think, again, when you see the photos, it just makes the whole thing more confusing.

Again, just looking at the flight path and all of the data.

Definitely lots of sources in the show notes, so check out that online.

Shop our Amazon affiliate links, get some merch.

Just scroll on down to the bottom of wherever you have listened to this podcast and hit that five-star button, or leave us some comments, you know?

And we'll see you next Tuesday.

Bye, guys.

See you next Tuesday.