KUALA LUMPUR: A former Air Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) investigator has rubbished what he calls a "scandalous" report centred around Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 documents indicating the pilot requested extra fuel and oxygen for the ill-fated flight.
Earlier today, the outlet published MH370 flight documents indicating extra fuel and oxygen were requested for the ill-fated flight.
It also quoted British Boeing 777 pilot, Simon Hardy who said clues to the mystery of the missing plane lie in the flight documents.
Hardy, who was invited to join the Australian Transport Safety Bureau's MH370 search team in 2015, alleged the extra 3,000kg of fuel and oxygen "could be proof" that the plane's disappearance was "premeditated".
In the past, some have claimed that the aircraft's pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah deliberately flew the plane into the ocean, though authorities have dismissed such theories.
The former AAIB investigator, who was part of the initial search of the missing aircraft, today said the documents published by The Sun were not new and that MH370 investigators already reviewed the documents in the "early days" of the investigation.
He also said it was normal for pilots to request additional fuel for several reasons including expectations of delays due to weather conditions.
He said Zaharie only requested 3,000kg of extra fuel, which is not even 10 per cent of the initial load.
"If he (Zaharie) had any intention of doing what he's accused of, he probably would have asked for an additional 40,000kg of fuel.
"That aeroplane can take about 120 tonnes of fuel so it doesn't offer any logic to just take a small amount of fuel to fly the plane into the Indian Ocean," the former investigator– who wishes to be unnamed– said.
The aircraft, he added– a 777-200 IGW, has a fuel capacity of 130,000kg. The departure fuel on MH370 was 49,100kg. This included the additional 30 minute reserve fuel requested by the pilot.
"He did not request an unusual amount of additional fuel. Unusual amount would be tens of thousands kilogrammes that the aircraft had capacity to carry in the fuel tanks.
"The oxygen servicing was a routine engineering maintenance requirement. This is a normal task on Boeing and Airbus aircraft."
He said during the initial probe, investigators also spoke to the engineers who serviced the aircraft and they confirmed the oxygen quantity was low.
"So they refilled the oxygen. It has nothing to do with MH370's operating captain (Zaharie). This is purely compliance with requirements. It's absolutely normal."
The former investigator added that the report was merely "sensationalising" the issue and that anyone with technical knowledge would know there is nothing out of the ordinary in the flight documents.
He said the aircraft's maker Boeing and its competitor Airbus would be able to confirm what he said about oxygen requirements for aircraft.
NST has also reached out to the Transport Ministry and former Department of Civil Aviation director-general Datuk Seri Azharuddin Abdul Rahman for comment.
On March 8, 2014, Flight MH370 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing vanished from radar after two hours of flying.
There has been little to no news of the whereabouts of the plane.
Underwater searches for the plane in the Indian Ocean have covered 120,000 sq km and cost about RM 605 million. The search was suspended in January 2017.
In 2018, Ocean Infinity embarked on a three-month 'no cure, no fee' search covering about 112,000 sq km in the southern Indian Ocean. It concluded without any discovery.