The Malaysia Airlines plane disappeared on March 8 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, and authorities concluded it probably crashed into the Indian Ocean. As the tragedy was investigated, Malaysia looked into the crew members and all passengers who could have hijacked the plane. They asked all countries who had passengers aboard to complete background checks to try and unearth any possible culprits.
However, there were two conspicuous countries that refused to help, according to Jeff Wise, author of The Plane That Wasn’t There.
Mr Wise said: “As for the other passengers on the plane, it was reported that Malaysia had asked each of the countries to do background checks and each country had complied with two exceptions – Russia and Ukraine.”
This became especially conspicuous later in the year when another Malaysia Airlines flight, MH17, was shot down over Ukraine in July.
The incident took place during the Battle of Shakhtarsk in an area controlled by pro-Russian rebels.
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The aircraft was reportedly taken down by a surface-to-air missile transported from Russia on the day of the crash.
All 298 people on board that plane were killed.
For MH370, nothing about the other passengers or crew seemed to turn up much evidence.
For a time, the Malaysian authorities focused on the captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah.
This is because there was a very short gap between the last verbal communication with MH370 and the switching off of the transponder, so it was thought it was unlikely to be a passenger who hijacked the plane.
Two minutes is a short time for a hijacker to overpower the flight flew and turn off all communications, whilst preventing any distress signal to be sent out.
However, when looking into the pilot there did not seem to be anything suspicious.
They seized his flight simulator to see if he had been practising landings in the southern Indian Ocean, but found nothing of interest.
Mr Wise said: “The man seemed friendly, well-liked and professional.
“He was suffering marital problems, but not to an unusual degree.”
It was after the Malaysian authorities came up empty-handed from this endeavour, they turned their attention to the other people on the plane.”