Terror in the Sky E-Book

TARAK GHOSH

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 341

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

The Inner Stories of two hijacked aircrafts and a missing aircraft. A collection of three non-fictions (Silent Cockpit, Flight 73 and Flight 648) under one cover Silent Cockpit: 'Silent Cockpit' is a non-fiction, based on the mysterious missing of Malaysian Flight MH 370 that had left behind a series of unanswered question. On March 8, 2014, the Malaysian Airlines MH370 had been 'vanished' from the sky and it has become one of the world's greatest aviation mysteries.. After five years  no one can sayexactly what happened to the ill fated aircraft. This book has tried to find the answers behind the mysterious missing of Flight MH 370. Flight 73: 'Flight 73' is a non-fiction, based on the true events that had happened on 6th September, 1986 while Pan-Am Clipper 73 was hijacked on the ground in Karachi, Pakistan. Nearly 361 passengers, ground crew and 13 flight attendants spent 16 hours as hostages of the terrorists. When the 747's alternate power system f

Leseprobe

Tarak Ghosh

Terror in the Sky

3 True Crime in 1

BookRix GmbH & Co. KG80331 Munich

Terror in the Sky

TERROR

In the

SKY

(Flight 73, Silent Cockpit and Flight 648)

T R U E C R I M E

TARAK GHOSH

Terror in the Sky (Flight 73, Silent Cockpit and Flight 648)

ANon-Fiction by Tarak Ghosh

All the books included in the book ‘Terror in the Sky’ were published first by BookRix GmbH & Co. KG, Sonnenstraße 23, 80331 Munich, Germany

Other titles from the same author

Silent Cockpit, non-fiction, Flight 73 (Non-Fiction), Silent Shriek (Non-Fiction), Princess Is Back (Paranormal Historical Fiction, Paperback & E-book), Memory Lane (Romantic Fiction Paperback & E-book), Lucy (Collection of short stories, E-book), Hell Flower (Sci-Fi, Paperback & E-book), The Snake Woman (Sci-Fi, Paperback & E-book), Lust & Poison (Sci-Fi, Paperback & E-book), I Am Suzan (Romance, Paperback & E-book)

Cover Image Courtesy:Image by Pixabayhttps://www. Pixabay.com

Cover Design: Sayani Ghosh

First Edition : November, 2020

This is a work of Non-fiction.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the memory of those innocent passengers on board who had been killed or lost forever.

Three Non-Fictions in One

SILENT COCKPIT

FLIGHT 73

FLIGHT 648

S I l E N ET C O C K P I T

(The Greatest Aviation Mystery)

Author’s Note

I extend my heartfelt sympathies to the families, friends, and colleagues of those on board.

The missing of Flight MH 370 is not a history, but a mystery that had left behind a series of unanswered question. It is very hard to believe that a Boeing 777 like aircraft vanished from the sky without any trace. How do you explain the tragic missing of the Flight MH 390 ? Air crash? Suicidal Dive? Terrorism? Mass murder? You must be confused. The investigators have been searching for the fact for last five years. Still they are wandering in the dark. The friends and families of the passengers are angry, confused. Even after five years of the tragic disappearance of MH 370, we all have been searching for the answers of the three interrogative pronouns – ‘Who’, ‘Why’ and ‘Where’. But the most important is how long the families of the passengers will wait to know the fact. A few investigators believe that the important answers probably don’t lie in the ocean but on land. That is the frustration here. The answers may lie close at hand, but they are more difficult to retrieve than any black box.

It is 2020. Six years ago, on March 8, 2014, the Malaysian Airlines MH370 had been missed from the sky and still it remains a great mystery of the world. No one can say properly what happened to the ill fated airplane. The children and relatives of the lost passengers are still in doubt whether they will back or not. They are confused reading the news and updates of the YouTube videos. When they recall the deadly memory, their hearts start racing and their spines become chilled. What happened to flight MH370 has become one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries. The important answers probably don’t lie in the ocean but on land, in Malaysia. That should be the focus moving forward. Unless they are as incompetent as the air force and air traffic control, the Malaysian police know more than they have dared to say. The riddle may not be deep.

Flight MH 370 disappeared in March 8, 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing with 239 people on board. Among them, 227 were passengers and 12 crews. Captain Zaharie Shah was in control of the plane when it last communicated with air traffic control at 1:19am over the South China Sea. However, moments later, the plane vanished from civilian radar screens following a routine handover from Malaysian to Vietnamese channels.

The aviation world is still in the dark. But, a large section of the aviation world believes that something had been happened in the sky or it was fixed before time. But, it can be said, a conspiracy pushed the flight into a deadly future. Who made that conspiracy and why? Who are involved with this conspiracy? Was it digitally hijacked in the mid sky?

In 2014, a University of Chicago study estimated that at least 50 per cent of Americans believed at least one conspiracy theory. When the study was repeated in November last year, this number had jumped to 61 per cent. Meanwhile, a similar study by the University of Cambridge published the same month found at least 60 per cent of people in the UK believed at least one conspiracy theory about the government.

Conspiracy-focused internet sites claim that the official statement that the plane crashed into the Indian Ocean makes no sense. If Flight 370 hit the ocean, they say, it would have been broken into tens of thousands of pieces, many of which float on water (such as the seat cushions) and would be seen washing up on regional shores or easily spotted by search teams.

Official announcements by the Malaysian Government were questioned by many critics, and several theories about the disappearance were proposed. Some of these theories were described as Conspiracy theories. The incident remains under investigation. Rob Brotherton, a lecturer in psychology at wrote that conspiracy theories emerge immediately after any catastrophe occurs and conclusive information about why they do so remains unavailable. Andrew Leonard wrote that conspiracy theorists were bolstered by the revelation of new satellite data two weeks after the flight disappeared that had been hidden from the public

But, still we don’t know a lot of points that should be investigated. What caused the plane to divert since neither the cockpit crew nor the plane's monitoring systems gave any sign of trouble prior to that, and the weather was clear that night.

Zaharie was a known supporter of Malaysia's opposition, and it was later found that Fariq had let passengers into the cockpit on an earlier flight, breaching safety rules. But investigators say nothing in either man's background suggests a desire to commit mass murder.

We don't know whether a hijack or terror attack was responsible, since there has never been a claim of responsibility by any group or individual. We don't know why the plane's tracking systems were switched off and by whom, an act that Malaysia has said appeared to be ‘deliberate’

An editorial in the Chicago Sun Times stated that ‘conspiracy theories fill a vacuum when facts are scarce,’ but also urged governments to search for the plane to debunk these theories and give victims' family members peace of mind.

In early 2017, Malaysia, China and Australia called off a two-year, $144 million search in the southern Indian Ocean after finding no trace of the plane. A second three-month search (north of the original target area) led by U.S. exploration firm Ocean Infinity, ended similarly in May 2018. A 495-page report published in July said the Boeing 777 was likely deliberately taken off course but investigators were unable to determine who was responsible. The Malaysian government has said it would consider resuming a search if new evidence came to light.

“They’ve said goodbye. But for us, we’ve not said goodbye at all.”

Thank you for reading, but I have a request – please feel the mental and financial condition of those relatives who are still waiting for their loving ones.

I am grateful to the authorities of ‘Face Book’, ‘Twitter’, ‘Wikipedia’ and all the media (Print, Electronic and Web) all over the world. I thank those reporters and authors who had tried to solve the mystery with their hard labor. Thank you all.

Tarak Ghosh

Chapter 1

Night Turns into Nightmare

March 7 – March 8, 2014

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain Zaharie speaking. Welcome to Flight Number 370, non-stop from Kual Lampur to Beijing. The weather ahead is good and, therefore, we should have smooth and uneventful flight. Now sit back and relax.” After a few minutes the flight took off and flew to an unknown place leaving a series of question mark.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was a passenger flight that left Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 8, 2014 and disappeared 94 minutes later en route to Beijing Capital International Airport. It went missing five years, yet its fate remains a mystery. No one still knows the answers of the questions - “Where, Why and How long.” Shortly after midnight on March 8, 2014, without warning, an entirely normal flight had been devolved into an illogical series of events.

Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) is called in local language Lapangan Terbang Antarabangsa Kuala Lumpuris. It is Malaysia’s main International Airport and one of the major airports in South-East Asia and worldwide. It is located in Sepan District of Selangor, approximately 28 miles south of Kuala Lumpur City Centre and serves the Greater Klang Valley conurbation. KLIA is the largest and busiest airport in Malaysia. It is the world’s 23 rd busiest airport by total passenger traffic.

The airport is part of the KLIA Aeropolis, and is made up of two main terminals; the original terminal, KLIA Main and the new terminal 2, also known as klia2. KLIA Main.

Malaysya Airlines is an airline operating flights from Kuala Lumpur International Airport. The airline operates flights throughout East and Southeast Asia, with service to Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East,Europe and, until April 2014, Los Angeles via Tokyo. It has 105 planes in its fleet. The Aviation Safety Network lists three accidents (not including Flight 370) involving MAS aircraft. The company headquarters are located at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

Flight 370 was waiting in the tarmac. It was a Boeing 777-2H6ER. The plane first flew on May 14, 2002, according to the Aviation Safety Network. It had flown a total of 53,465 hours on 7,525 flight cycles. This type of aircraft is configured to carry 282 passengers; 35 in Business Class and 247 in Economy Class. It has two Rolls-Royce Trent 892 engines mounted under its 200-foot (61 meters) wings. The plane has a maximum fuel capacity of 179,400 liters and a range of 7,941 miles. Its cruising speed is 640 mph. This particular aircraft last underwent maintenance on Feb. 23, 2014. A Malaysia Airlines spokesperson said no issues were identified during the maintenance. The aircraft had no history of major incidents before its disappearance. However, it was reportedly involved in a minor ground collision in 2012, which resulted in significant damage to a wingtip.

The passengers of Flight MH 370 were waiting eagerly to reach their destination. Most of the passengers were Chinese. One of a group of 24 Chinese artists was getting back home. They had travelled to Kuala Lumpur to attend an art exhibition. Daniel Liau, a Malaysian gallery owner helped organize the exhibition in Kuala Lumpur that the group of Chinese artists on the flight participated in. They came from all over China: Jiangsu, Sichuan and also Xinjiang province. Lou Baitang, a 79 year old renowned calligraphist whose many works are included in the dictionary, was along with a 73 year old calligrapher. Her name was Zhao Zhao Fang, famous for her works. On the lounge 20 staff members from a US technology company which makes powerful microchips for industries, including defense, waiting. They were looking very energetic.

A young couple was seating at the corner seat. They were heading home to Beijing after a beach getaway in Vietnam. Mr. Muktesh Mukherjee (42), an Indian born Canadian citizen and his wife Bai Xiaomo were looking very anxious to meet their little children left their home. They lived in Beijing with their sons Mirav (9) and Miles (2). Mr. Mukherjee's grandfather, a former Indian government minister, died in a plane crash outside New Delhi in 1970. At that moment they were thinking about their children and were eager to back soon.

Bian Liangjing was standing alone. He was going back home after a year. In 2013, he left his wife and infant daughter to work as a construction worker in Singapore. He was on a transfer flight to Beijing. It was his first flight back home. Chen Changhun was on his way home to visit his dying father in Shandong province. His father died the day Malaysia Airlines announced the plane was missing.

Retired engineer Vinod Kolekar (59), a resident of Mumbai, India, along with his wife Chetna (55) and his younger son Swanand (23) were going to visit their eldest son, Sanved, who had moved to Beijing after finishing his doctorate in physics.

Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad (18) was hoping to join his mother in Germany. He chose a long and circuitous route from Iran to Kuala Lumpur, to transit through Beijing and onwards to Amsterdam and then Frankfurt. Delavar Seyed Mohammadreza, travelled with him. They were both young Iranian men seeking a new life in Europe far from home. Pouria Nour had posted a status update of ‘feeling excited’ upon his arrival at Kuala Lumpur from the city of Karaj in Iran two weeks before. Pouria's mother had been calling from Hamburg ever since MH370 vanished, asking how her son was during his brief stay in Malaysia.

Razahan Zamani and his wife Norli Akmar Hamid, were on their delayed honeymoon. They met each other in Kuala Lumpur while working at a supermarket chain. They got married in 2012. They were on a long-delayed honeymoon trip to Beijing because the couple planned the holiday after Ms Norli suffered a miscarriage. Before the trip, Ms Norli posted a picture on social media of one of her cats sitting on her suitcase.

At just 23 months old, Wang Moheng was one of the youngest passengers on board flight MH370. He was returning from a week's holiday in Malaysia with his mother Jiao Weiwei (32), and father, Wang Rui (35). Two of his grandparents were also on board the plane.

The airport IBM executive Philip Wood (50) originally from Texas, was one of three Americans on the plane. He had just been transferred to Malaysia and was excited about the new beginning,

It was his last planned trip to Beijing before settling in Kuala Lumpur. He has two sons from a previous marriage who are based in Texas. The lounge was full of dream, full of eagerness, full of hope. But, I am certain their future was fixed beforehand if it was not a simple accident. We still don’t know who are responsible for the ‘mass killing?’ of the passengers of Flight MH 373.

It was a clean dark night. The passengers could hear the announcement, went straight to the security check and stood in a short line. The line did move quickly.

22: 50, March, 2014.

Captain Zaharie Ahmed Shah signed in for duty. Captain Shah was a handsome man of 53 and a respected pilot with 33 years of experience at the state flag carrier. He joined Malaysia Airlines as a cadet pilot in 1981 and, after training and receiving his commercial pilot's licence, he became a Second Officer with the airline in 1983. He was promoted to captain of Boeing 737 airliners in 1991, captain of Airbus A330 in 1996, and captain of Boeing 777 in 1998. He had been a Type Rating Instructor and a Type Rating Examiner since 2007. Captain Zaharie had a total of 18,365 hours of flying experience.

23:15, March, 2014.

The First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid signed at 23:15. He joined Malaysia Airlines as a cadet pilot in 2007 when he was only 20 tears; after becoming a second officer of Boeing 737-400 airliners, he was promoted to first officer of the Boeing 737-400 in 2010 and then transitioned to the Airbus A330-300 in 2012. In November 2013, he began training as first officer of Boeing 777-200 aircraft. Flight 370 was his final training flight and he was scheduled to be examined on his next flight. First Officer Fariq had accumulated 2,763 hours of flying experience.

Eventually the passengers were given the all clear to board. On board there were business travelers, students, families, couples, and singles from Malaysia, Australia, America, Indonesia, China, India, Russia and other countries. The pilot informed the passengers that the aircraft was shortly about to taxi out onto the runway in readiness for takeoff. The voice continued by informing them that they would be travelling at 30,000ft at an average speed of 500 miles per hour as headed out over the over the South China Sea between Malaysia and Vietnam to Beijing Capital International Airport where it was expected to land at 06:30 local time.

There were ten cabin staffs, all Malayan citizens. It was 12 : 00. Two flight attendants went through the monotonous routine of demonstrating how to fix the seat belts, the location of the life jackets under the seats, pointing out the emergency exits and the on floor lighting and so on.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your first flight attendant. While we prepare the cabin, pay attention as we use a checklist to review some very important safety information with you. At this time, extinguish all cigarettes; bring seatbacks to the upright position; stow all tray tables; make sure seatbelts are low and tight about you. Take the safety card from the seat pocket and look at the protective positions shown on the card. With your seatbelt low and tight, lean forward and grab your ankles. If you cannot grab your ankles, cross your arms, lean forward with the palms of your hands against the seatback in front of you and press your forehead against the back of your hands. Flight attendants, check passenger protective positions. Once completed it was a trip down the aisle to check that the passenger’s seat belts were fastened and that their seats were in an upright position before returning to their galley to check that all of the food trolleys were stowed fast ready for takeoff.

The aircraft's SDU logs onto the Inmarsat satellite communication network. At 12:27, ATC gives Flight 370 clearance to push back from the gate. At 12:40:37, ATC gives Flight 370 clearance to take off. It was a warm, moonless night with mostly cloudy skies when the jetliner lifted off at 12:41 a.m. The Boeing 777 glided gently into the mid night Malaysian sky over Kuala Lumpur International Airport before turning eastwards towards the China Sea. Soon the lights would go out and the majority of passengers would snuggle down in their cramped seat and sleep away the monotonous hours of the flight. Then the cabin fell silent, saved for the restless uneven throbbing of the engines.

Few minutes after, Zaharie confirmed to air traffic control that the plane was flying at cruise altitude. “… Seven Three Seven Zero maintaining level three five zero.”

Eleven minutes later, as the airplane neared the end of Malaysian airspace; the controller issued a last instruction to the crew in command of Flight 370, giving them the frequency to which they should tune their radio upon crossing into Vietnam’s airspace.

“Malaysian Three Seven Zero, contact Ho Chi Minh one two zero decimal nine, good night.”

It was 1.10. Zaharie’s last voice was heard - “Good night Malaysian,” His voice was calm, according to a stress analyst who listened to the recording as part of the Malaysian probe. There was no indication of trouble.

The poor passengers couldn’t imagine then how an ordinary night had started crawling towards a nightmare. No one knew what would be going to happen in next few hours. Only the relatives of the victims can realize their mental and physical condition.

Chapter 2

Beijing Capital Airport

March 08, 2014, 06 30 am. It was the scheduled landing time of MH 370 at the Beijing Airport. It was a bright morning. The relatives and friends gathered to meet Flight 370. They were casually waiting for their relatives and friends. Before they heard the sad news they couldn’t think even in the nightmare that their waiting would be an eternal waiting within a few moments.

Vinod Kolekar(59), along with his wife Chetna (55) and their younger son Swanand, 23, were on board MH370, on the way to visit their eldest son, Sanved, who had moved to Beijing after finishing his doctorate in physics. Just in November, 2014, Sanved had been married in a ceremony in Mumbai. Sanved and his new wife were both waiting at Beijing airport to welcome their family.

The time had come at last. But the aircraft MH 370 didn’t land at Beijing Capital Airport. The clock was ticking and every second became heavier than before. After 06:30 the airport authority announced that the flight was delayed. The relatives didn’t give importance the announcement. They thought it a normal delay. But in the next moments the entire situation changed into a nightmare, darker than a moonless night. The person, who never faced such a situation, can’t ever imagine how ‘waiting’ becomes more painful than the pain of death.

Meanwhile Malaysia Airlines announced that Flight MH 370 lost all contact. The news of missing MH 370 changed the entire situation into a valley of hopeless sorrow, a deep ocean of tears. The mental condition of the waiting relatives can’t be explained in words. The Beijing Airport witnessed the pathetic situation of the crying people.

One of the relatives said, “We deeply regret that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board have survived, we must now accept all evidence suggests the plane went down in the Southern Indian Ocean.”

The family members in Beijing had been called to a hotel Lido near the Beijing airport to hear the announcement. Relatives of the missing passengers were briefed about the new information just before the public announcement. One woman collapsed and fell on her knees, crying -“My son! Myson!”

Relatives shrieked and sobbed uncontrollably and men and women held up their loved ones when they heard the news. Their grief came pouring out after days of waiting for definitive word on the fate of their relatives aboard the missing plane. Tears, bewilderment, anger, confusion, screaming and crying mixed together making the rooms a sorrow of ocean, bigger than the Atlantic.

At the Lido hotel, where many of the Chinese relatives have complained about what they have described as incomplete or contradictory information provided by the airline and Malaysian authorities, two distraught women and a man came to address journalists nearly two hours after the announcement.

“I tell you, this was the wrong way to release this information,” one of the women said between sobs, speaking over the bellows of security guards trying to hold back the crush. “It’s all so black,” she said, using the Chinese expression for opacity and deceit.

Xu Dengwang, whose wife was a passenger on Flight 370, was reeling from the shock in his room at the Lido hotel in Beijing. Xu told later - “I learned the news from television. I couldn't handle it. I fainted.” He shouted in great anger and disbelief - “How can you announce this news to the world without providing evidence?” Some relatives of Chinese passengers aboard the flight read out an emotional statement, calling for Malaysia Airlines and Malaysia's government to be held accountable. The statement said –“ Malaysia Airlines, the government of Malaysia... and the military forces of Malaysia have concealed, delayed and hid the truth from the relatives and the peoples of the world”.

Malaysia Airlines sent text messages to the relatives to give them the grim update. “As you will hear in the next hour from Malaysia’s prime minister, we must now accept all evidence suggests the plane went down in the Southern Indian Ocean.”

Medical teams arrived with several stretchers and at least one elderly man was carried out of the conference room on one of them, his faced covered by a jacket. Minutes later a middle-aged woman was taken out on another, her face ashen and her eyes blank and expressionless.

Nan Jinyan, whose brother-in-law Yan Ling was aboard the flight, said she was prepared for the worst. She said, "This is a blow to us, and it is beyond description,"

An angry relative shouted in a loud voice - “Nobody has told us anything. Nobody talked to us except volunteers and hotel staffs. The Malaysia side has told us they are not sending officials to meet us. How can Malaysians get so tough? What on earth our foreign minister doing?”

“For such a big issue they sent a couple of guys who don’t know what were going on? This is irresponsible. They offered us nothing for response.” Tears came out from the eyes of a sobbing relative.

The maker of flight MH370's aircraft, the Boeing 777, released a statement with the latest official update.

“Our thoughts and deepest sympathies continue to be with the families and loved ones of those aboard.” Malaysia Airlines later released a statement to further clarify how it communicated the latest developments about MH370 to relatives of passengers on the flight.

“It is with deep sadness that Malaysia Airlines earlier this evening had to confirm to the families of those on board Flight MH370 that it must now be assumed the flight had been lost. As the Prime Minister said, respect for the families is essential at this difficult time. And it is in that spirit that we informed the majority of the families in advance of the Prime Minister’s statement in person and by telephone. SMSs were used only as an additional means of communicating with the families. Those families have been at the heart of every action the company has taken since the flight disappeared on 8th March and they will continue to be so. When Malaysia Airlines receives approval from the investigating authorities, arrangements will be made to bring the families to the recovery area and until that time, we will continue to support the ongoing investigation.”

Chapter 3

The Ill-fated Passengers

The flight attendants of MH 370 welcomed the passengers normally like the other days - “Welcome aboard, I hope you enjoy your flight today.”

But the destiny smiled a little at the same time. No one could see her smile, only a ‘third person’ likely knew what was going to happen in next hours. The innocent passengers were waiting eagerly to reach their destination. No one knew what was going to happen in next few hours. No one ever thought even in their nightmare that it was their final flight. Air Traffic Control of Malaysia could not think they would never contact Captain Zaharie. They could not think then how a happy journey finally turned into a final journey.

Malaysian Airlines released a full list of missing passengers and crews on board. There were 14 nationalities represented in the 227 passengers and 12 crew members travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The majority - 153 people - were Chinese. Also on the aircraft were 20 staff members from a US technology company, Freescale Semiconductor, which makes powerful microchips for industries, including defense.

There was a baby on his mother’s lap. He was being fed by her. He just started to crawl; he just started to embrace his mother with his two small hands. He was 23 months old male baby Wang Moheng. He was one of the youngest passengers on board flight MH370. He was the loving son of his mother Jiao Weiwei and father Wang Rui who were returning from a week’s holiday in Malaysia. Two of his grandparents were also on board the plane. The families of other children joined his family in Malaysia, but returned on separate flights. His family reportedly said they were trying to get away ‘from the bad air in Beijing for a while’.

One of a group of 24 Chinese artists who had travelled to Kuala Lumpur to attend an art exhibition was the passengers of the ill fated aircraft. A feted group of 24 Chinese artists and five staff accompanying them were returning home after attending a cultural exhibition in Kuala Lumpur. They came from all over China: Jiangsu, Sichuan and also Xinjiang province. Among them was the oldest person on board, 79-year-old Lou Baotang, whose calligraphy has been included in dictionaries by many cultural institutions in China, Britain and the US, state media say. He was on the plane with Zhao Zhao Fang, a 73-year-old calligrapher and retired professor who had collected a litany of titles for her work. The wife of Memetjan Abra, a Uighur painter on board, told Xinhua news agency that she was able to speak to him briefly before his flight. “He is a good painter, husband and father,” she said.

Chinese-born Bai and her husband Muktesh Mukherjee had been returning from a holiday to Vietnam. The couple's two little sons were waiting for them at home. Mr Mukherjee's grandfather, a former Indian government minister, died in a plane crash outside New Delhi in the 1970s. Manoj Mukherjee, uncle of Muktesh told who lived in New Delhi, India said, “Miracles do happen. We pray it will happen this time and Muktesh will come back to us.”

Muktesh Mukherjee was a 42 years old Indian-born Canadian. He was working in an US firm XCoal. Muktesh met his wife, Bai Xiaomo, while on business trip in China in 2002. Muktesh and lived in Beijing with their sons Mirav, 9, and Miles, 2 and they lived in Montreal before moving to Beijing. The couple was heading home to Beijing after a beach getaway in Vietnam. Bai Xiaomo, had posted pictures of their holiday shortly before boarding their flight.

IBM executive Philip Wood, a fifty years old man, was one of three Americans on the plane. Mr Wood was an avid traveler who had just been transferred to Malaysia and was excited about the new beginning. It was his last planned trip to Beijing before settling in Kuala Lumpur. He was described by friends as an “adventurous” person who was on his last trip to China before taking up a position in Kuala Lumpur

He has two sons from a previous marriage who are based in Texas. By the by Mr. Wood was originated from Texas. His father, Aubrey Wood was shocked in disbelief when he heard the news. He could say – “We are all sticking together. What can you do? What can you say?”

Another passenger on the way to a new job was a mechanical engineer Paul Weeks from New Zealand.

Passengers of Flight MH 370

153 Chinese, 38 Malaysians, 7 Indonesians, 6 Australians, 5 Indians, 4 French, 3 Americans

2 each from New Zealand, Ukraine and Canada, One each from Russia, Taiwan, Netherlands, 2 men - one confirmed as Iranian - travelling under stolen Italian and Austrian passports

Malaysian Mohd Sofuan Ibrahim was reportedly heading to Beijing to report for duty at Malaysia's Ministry of International Trade and Industry branch office there. Later his father, Ibrahim Abdul Razak, told Malaysia's state news agency Bernama that the 33-year-old had never disappointed him. Mr Sofuan was to have held his post in Beijing for six months.

. Yuchen Li recently finished his doctoral engineering degree from Cambridge University. He previously studied civil engineering at Tsinghua University in Beijing. The Cambridge university confirmed that Yuchen was a hugely talented and likeable person with a brilliant career ahead of him and he had recently begun working in a prominent ‘geotechnical position’ in Beijing. Dr Li had only recently married, but luckily his wife, Mingei Ma, was not on the flight with him.

Bao Yuanhus (63) and Liu Rusheng (76) had travelled to Kuala Lumpur to attend an art exhibition. Bao was director of Nanjing's Social and Technology Statistics Bureau. Bian Maquin (67) was originally from Tianjin and it was Bian’s first time travelling overseas. Bian Liangjing (27) was a dentistry graduate from Shijiazhuang in Hebei, Bian Liangjing left his wife and infant daughter in 2013 to work as a construction worker in Singapore. He was on a transfer flight to Beijing – his first flight back home.

Mihdhassim Bibynazli (62) was a Malaysian and known as Biby. She was the wife of former Celcom chief executive officer Datuk Mohamed Ramli Abbas and travelling with her two daughters, Dina, 30 and Maria, 32, as well as her younger sister Noorida.

Nikolai Brodskii (43) was a resident of the Siberian city of Irkutsk, Russia. Brodskii was a scuba diving instructor who was returning to Russia from a diving holiday in Bali, Indonesia. He was a husband and father of sons aged 17 and 11.

Rodney Burrows (59) and Mary Burrows (54) were from Australia and travelling with their friends Catherine and Robert Lawton. The Burrows, parents of two adult daughters and a son had just moved house a fortnight before the flight.

Cao Rui (32) worked for a foreign company in Beijing and travelled to Malaysia for a business trip. Her colleagues went back to Beijing after the trip, but Cao stayed behind with husband Ma Jun (33) to celebrate their delayed honeymoon. Ma, who worked for another foreign firm, used his annual leave to be with Cao for their romantic trip. 

Huan Peen Chan (46) was a Malaysian and known as Jesse. He was an engineer at Malaysian company Freescale Semiconductor and lived in Kuala Lumpur with his wife Janet and their two children Xanthus and Lukas.

Che Junzhang (68), the wife of Zhang Jinquan, was part of the group of Chinese artists who had travelled to Kuala Lumpur to attend the art exhibition. Hou Bo was the marketing director of a ibicn.com, a B2B commerce website. He was one of the groups. Chen Changjun (35) was on his way home to visit his dying father in Shandong province. His father died the day Malaysia Airlines announced the plane was missing.

Chen Wei (43) and Tan Sioh Peng (41), the couple was on holiday without their children aged 15 and 11. Son Eric Chen, his elder son was just 15. He, said his parents had skipped their routine of praying at a temple near their house in Klang before going on their trip.

Chen Yun (57) was returning home from a trip in Nepal with friends, transiting through Malaysia. Kar Mooi Chew (31) was a Malaysian and a Maybank employee travelling to Beijing for work. Her mother thought she had left on March 6th and had no idea she was on the flight.

Retired engineer Vinod Kolekar(59), along with his wife Chetna (55) and their younger son Swanand, 23, were on board MH370, on the way to visit their eldest son, Sanved, who had moved to Beijing after finishing his doctorate in physics. The son with them on the flight, Swanand, had recently received an engineering degree and was trying to get into the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), one of India’s most renown colleges, for further studies.

Ms. Kolekar had recently taken voluntary retirement from her job at a pathology lab at a hospital and Mr. Kolekar had long retired from a career as an engineer at one of India's biggest conglomerates, Mahindra & Mahindra.

Just in November, the older son Sanved had been married in a ceremony in Mumbai in front of around 500 relatives, friends and neighbors.

At 8 a.m. on Saturday, March 8, the Kolekars left from their simple middle-class home in a Mumbai suburb and climbed into a black and yellow taxi to head to the airport. Ms. Kolekar had packed bags with food and other household items to help her elder son set up his new home. The Kolekars are a generally reserved family but have been active in the tight, little middle-class community tucked in a suburb called Borivali. They are all well-educated and hardworking. The family flew from Mumbai to Kuala Lumpur before transferring to MH370 and disappearing.

Chapter 4

Captain Zaharie kept under the magnifying glass

Captain Zaharie was never out of focus of the media, common people or the family members of the lost passengers. Controversy always ran after him.

After the mysterious missing of Flight MH 370 Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, the pilot of the missing Boeing 777,was kept under the magnifying glass and he became the prime suspect when the search operation started in the Southern Indian Ocean. Byron Bailey, a former RAAF trainer and captain with Emirates, believed the plane was under the control of its captain as part of a deliberate descent into the Indian Ocean. Zaharie would have depressurized the cabin to put everyone else to sleep and then death. Bailey believed Shah did it before flying the plane solo for the next six hours until its fuel ran out. Malaysian Government believed that he deliberately switched off the tracking devices. The Malaysian police started to collect information about his psychological profiles, and looking into their family life and connections.

Before ending the three years of the missing of Flight MH 370, Malaysian Government published their ‘Safety Investigation Report’ in July, 2017. The 1,500 page investigative report didn’t blame Captain Zahari and the Co-pilot directly, but it was written in the report that the flight was under manual control and it was deliberately flown out into the Indian Ocean. The Chief Investigator Kok Soo Chon gave Captain Zaharie and the Co-pilot Fariq clean chit. But there was no such satisfactory answer that actually was in the control at that time.

Captain Shah was a respected pilot with 33 years of experience at the state flag carrier. He was the second-youngest of nine siblings born to a poor family in northern Penang state, Malaysia. He had wanted to fly since childhood and after high school and obtained a scholarship to pursue his dream. After graduating from an aviation school in Philippines, he joined Malaysia Airlines in 1981 and logged more than 18,000 flight hours.

People who knew him or knew about him, is that Zaharie was often lonely and sad. His wife had moved out, and was living in the family’s second house. By his own admission to friends, he spent a lot of time pacing empty rooms waiting for the days between flights to go by. He was also a romantic. According to the media report – “He is known to have established a wistful relationship with a married woman and her three children, one of whom was disabled, and to have obsessed over two young internet models, whom he encountered on social media, and for whom he left Face book comments that apparently did not elicit responses. Some were shyly sexual. He mentioned in one comment, for example, that one of the girls, who was wearing a robe in a posted photo, looked like she had just emerged from a shower.”

Zaharie seems to have become somewhat disconnected from his earlier, well-established life. He was in touch with his children, but they were grown and gone. The detachment and solitude that can accompany the use of social media—and Zaharie used social media a lot—probably did not help. There is a strong suspicion among investigators in the aviation and intelligence communities that he was clinically depressed.

The Chief Investigator Kok Soo Chon said Captain Zaharie had no conflict issues with friends or family and had shown no signs of social isolation, self-neglect, no abuse of alcohol or drugs, no change of habit or interest, no stress or anxiety was detected in his audio recordings and no signs of significant behavioral changes as observed in the CCTV footage.

MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpu Airport, Malaysia with 229 passengers and 12 crew at 12:41 am on March 8, 2014, climbing out over the South China Sea on a clear night, bound for Beijing. The Boeing 777 aircraft last communicated with air traffic control at 1.19am when the plane was flying over the South China Sea, before vanishing from civilian radar screens. 

Radar data shows the jet suddenly changed course and flew back across Malaysia before turning south of Penang and then towards the southern Indian Ocean, leading some to claim Captain Zaharie Shah played out a suicide mission. His voice was heard in the final radio communication less than two minutes before the plane began to divert from its flight path from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014. Just before MH370 was to pass into Vietnam's air-traffic control region, someone in the cockpit sent the final voice message back to Malaysian controllers: “Good night, Malaysia Three Seven Zero,” at 1:19am. Minutes later, the plane's transponder was shut down, making it impossible to accurately track the aircraft's location on radar screens. Vietnamese air traffic controllers frantically tried to contact the cabin crew after the plane failed to report as scheduled, but they were met with radio silence.

After the publication of ‘Safety Investigation Report 2017’, the Chief Investigator Kok Soo Chon said, “It is possible that the absence of communications prior to flight path diversion was due to the systems being manually turned off, whether with intent or otherwise … the route followed by the aircraft, the height at which it flew, did not suggest any mechanical problem with the aircraft’s control system, fuel or engines.”

One of his friends, a fellow Boeing 777 pilot, said he believed Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah was guilty of an atrocity and “it’s the necessary conclusion” to one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries.