Missing MH370: Evidence profiles suspect with advance hijacking skills

The suspect who brought the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 to the unknown is a technical genius with highly sophisticated hacking skills, to the extent that he or she has profound knowledge of how the Boeing 777 works, according to satellite expert Michale Exner. Profiling the suspect this way, MH370's captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah is therefore innocent, Exner who is independently investigating MH370 concludes.

Exner, a satellite expert investigating the disappearance of MH370 on his own volition, had the opportunity to fly a Boeing 777 in a flight simulator facility of a major US airline. He was accompanied by highly experienced 777 pilots.

In backtrack, preliminary reports regarding MH370 established that roughly forty minutes from the time the plane left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing, someone cut all communication systems of the plane - satellite communications, transponder, two auto-reporting systems, ACARS and ADS-B. Almost simultaneous to this, the plane veered away from its original track, turned sharply to the left and reportedly fly back towards the Malayan Peninsula - completely undetected and unmonitored by air traffic control zones. However, the Satellite Data Unit or SDU was able to send obscure electronic messages to the Inmarsat satellite 3F-1 located in a geosynchronous orbit above the Indian Ocean. According to a report from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau Board or ATSB, the signal transmitted to Inmarsat satellite was generated because the terminal was logged-on and had probably undergone power cycling. From this point, every hour for the next six hours the SDU responded to electronic handshakes being sent from a geostationary communications satellite - this suggested that the system remained active and logged on.

Exner pointed the mere fact that all communication systems were turned off implied that the suspect deliberately avoided any form of detection. Furthermore, the suspect displayed a deep knowledge of how international air traffic control protocol goes.

The fact that the SDU was able to be turned back on only suggested that the suspect used advanced hijacking skills. Whoever the perpetrator was, he or she knew that with the SDU turned on, all computer systems inside the plane will continue generating information - thus all significant electronic mechanism of the plane will remain functional, Exner said.

Exner highlighted the fact that the suspect has a working knowledge on how to access the section where all the communication systems were and the fact the suspect was able to manage all systems displayed sophisticated technical capability. Exner also emphasised that shutting the ACARS reporting system down - that can only be done through the plane's cockpit - also displayed the suspect's highly advanced technological ability.

What Exner found through his simulation of a Boeing 777 confirmed that "there is no way to turn off the primary power to the satcom from the cockpit." This scheme is not even described in the flight manuals, Exner said.

"The only way to do is to find an obscure circuit breaker in the equipment bay [i.e. the Electronic and Equipment bay, or E/E bay, is the airplane's main electronic nerve centre," Exner wrote. The problem is, "pilots are not trained to know that detail," the pilots accompanying Exner during the simulation said.

By Athena Yenko