MAS "shocked" by playboy pilot claims
Accusations the pilot of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 had previously flouted inflight regulations are being taken “very seriously” by the airline, but it stressed its attention remains on locating the missing aircraft.
During an interview on Australian TV show A Current Affair last night, South African tourist Jonti Roos claimed that two years ago, First Officer Fariq Ab Hamid and his co-pilot invited her and a friend into the cockpit for the duration of the flight to Thailand.
“Throughout the whole flight they were talking to us,” Roos said in the interview.
“They were actually smoking, which I don’t think they are allowed to be doing. And they were taking photos of us in the cockpit while they were flying. I was just completely shocked, I couldn’t believe it.”
In a statement, MAS said it was “shocked” by the allegations made against Ab Hamid who was in control of the Boeing 777- aircraft when it vanished.
But the airline urged the media and the general public to respect the privacy of the families of staff members and passengers who were on board the flight.
“We have not been able to confirm the validity of the pictures and videos of the alleged incident,” it said. “As you are aware, we are in the midst of a crisis, and we do not want our attention to be diverted.”
Meanwhile, there are still no further leads as to the whereabouts of the aircraft. Last heard from at 1.30am MYT on March 8, flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing was carrying 227 passengers, including six Australians, and 12 crew members.
The search effort was mobilised on Saturday morning, but has so far failed to find any evidence of any wreckage. The possibility that oil slicks and debris spotted in Vietnamese waters may have been connected to the aircraft’s disappearance has since been ruled out.
Although one of the passengers travelling on a stolen passport has been identified as a 19-year-old Iranian seeking to illegally migrate to Germany, the possibility of a terrorist attack is still under consideration.
The search operation has now been expanded to include remote parts of mainland Malaysia.
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