PERTH, Australia -- Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the "top levels" of the Malaysian government long suspected that the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 almost six years ago was a mass murder-suicide by the pilot.
Abbott was prime minister when the plane carrying 239 people vanished on March 8, 2014, while flying to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Australia, working on Malaysia's behalf, coordinated what became the largest search in aviation history, but it failed to find the plane before the search ended in 2017.
Abbott said high-ranking Malaysian officials believed that veteran pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah deliberately downed the jet.
"I'm not going to say who said what to whom, but let me reiterate, I want to be absolutely crystal clear, it was understood at the highest levels that this was almost certainly murder-suicide by the pilot," Abbott said.
In response, Malaysia's former prime minister and the country's police chief said there was no conclusive proof of pilot suicide.
Former Prime Minister Najib Razak told the Free Malaysia Today online news portal that a possible pilot suicide was never ruled out but that it would be "unfair and legally irresponsible" to pin the blame on Zaharie, as the black boxes had not been found.
Malaysian Police Chief Abdul Hamid Bador, who was one of the investigators, told media outlets that there was no evidence of Zaharie's involvement and that the plane's disappearance was still a mystery.
A Malaysian-led independent investigation report released in 2018 said the plane's course was changed manually. But the report did not name a suspect, and it raised the possibility of "intervention by a third party." Investigators, however, said the cause of the disappearance can't be determined until the wreckage and the plane's black boxes are found.
Malaysia's Transport Ministry didn't immediately respond to Abbott's comments.
The pilot's family has long denied he was suicidal.
"I've read all these stories that the Malaysians allegedly didn't want the murder-suicide theory pursued because they were embarrassed about one of their pilots doing this. I have no reason to accept that," Abbott said.
The Australian-led search scoured 46,000 square miles of the southern Indian Ocean and cost $150 million. A private hunt by the Texas company Ocean Infinity later searched more than 37,000 square miles of sea.
Debris that washed ashore in the western Indian Ocean has been confirmed as being from the missing Boeing 777. It indicated a broad expanse where the plane likely crashed after running out of fuel.
Australia, Malaysia and China agreed in 2016 that an official search would only resume if the three countries had credible evidence that identified a specific location for the wreckage. Most of the passengers were Chinese.
Abbott said he believed a new investigation was warranted.
"Let's assume that it was murder-suicide by the pilot, and if there is any part of that ocean that could have been reached on that basis that has not yet been explored, let's get out and explore it," he said.
A Section on 02/20/2020