- Zaharie was on the brink of divorcing his wife after nearly 30 years of marriage.
- He refused to attend marriage counselling with Islamic elders.
- He shunned family and spent hours alone on his flight simulator.
- He expressed ‘utter frustration’ at the jailing of his political hero, Anwar Ibrahim, hours before the flight.
Captain Zaharie wife Faizah Khanum Mustafa Khan had allegedly informed investigators that "he retreated into a shell", spending time alone in his room in the house they shared, The Mail on Sunday reported today.
The wife of the pilot at the helm of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 told investigators that he stopped speaking to her in the weeks leading up to the ill-fated flight.
More than three weeks since flight MH370 disappeared with 239 crew and passengers aboard, investigators in Malaysia suspect that the plane may have been deliberately steered off course.
The plane is thought to have flown hundreds of miles out over the southern Indian Ocean where it eventually ran out of fuel and plunged into the sea.
Speaking about the mystery for the first time, the wife and daughter of Captain Zaharie said the 53-year-old pilot had been distracted and withdrawn in the weeks before the aircraft’s disappearance.
According to the same report, no suicide note has been found and no motive established, but police are continuing to concentrate their inquiries on the pilot’s background and whether his state of mind before the flight may be a factor.
Quoting a source close to the pilot’s family, The Mail on Sunday reported that Faizah told investigators that Captain Zaharie had stopped speaking to her and spent time alone in his room where he had built a flight simulator.
"He just retreated into a shell. I found him distant and difficult to understand," she said, adding that her husband was so withdrawn he hardly spoke to his sons and was not close to them.
[caption id="attachment_5156" align="alignright" width="410"]
Aishah Zaharie, 27, Ahmad Seth Zaharie, 26, and their mother Faizah Khanum Mustafa Khan at an event (left), Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah from Malaysia Airlines (right)[/caption]Of his three children, Captain Zaharie appears to have been closest to his daughter Aishah, who flew back from Melbourne, Australia, to be with her family after MH370 went missing.
She had told investigators that her last conversations with her father was a lot different to those they shared before.
"He wasn’t the father I knew. He seemed disturbed and lost in a world of his own," she told investigators, according to the Mail on Sunday.
"He wasn’t his usual self. He was distant and cranky," she had said, adding that she did not know if there was another woman in her father's life.
Among other revelations from the unnamed source were that Captain Zaharie was on the brink of divorcing his wife after nearly 30 years of marriage, but still refused to attend marriage counselling with Islamic elders.
He was also alleged to have expressed "utter frustration" at the jailing of his political hero, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, in an appeals court hours before the flight. The Court of Appeal had ruled on March 7 that Anwar was guilty of sodomy, overturning an acquittal from the initial trial in 2012.
Faizah broke down repeatedly during two lengthy interviews with police, the family source told The Mail on Sunday, adding that one of the interviews lasted more than four hours.
However, despite the pilot’s behaviour, his family are convinced that he was not responsible for the plane’s disappearance.
According to the report, Faizah refused to accept Captain Zaharie might be involved in the flight’s disappearance, protesting: "It’s unfair to blame my husband."
His daughter Aishah also told investigators she did not believe he could be in any way responsible for the flight’s disappearance.
"I don’t believe he would ever intentionally endanger the lives of his crew and passengers," she insisted.
According to the Mail on Sunday, police interviews with family members have confirmed that the pilot Captain Zaharie, who lived with his family in an upmarket suburb in Kuala Lumpur, did not have any obvious financial problems. Malaysian Insider / Faizah Khanum
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Aishah Zaharie said her father spoke to her about his marital problems and told her he didn’t think they could reconcile. In their conversations, he asked her how she would feel if her parents divorced.
Aishah said she tried to persuade her father to seek the help of Islamic elders to try to mend the relationship but he refused.
The daughter told investigators she did not know if there was another woman in her father’s life.
Although Aishah does not appear to have spoken to her father on the day the flight disappeared, she told investigators she knew from friends in Kuala Lumpur he was upset and felt ‘utter frustration’ over the jail sentence given to Anwar Ibrahim.
Despite her father’s personal problems, Aishah told investigators she did not believe he could be in any way responsible for the flight’s disappearance.
‘I don’t believe he would ever intentionally endanger the lives of his crew and passengers,’ she insisted.
Investigators also spoke to the pilot’s two sons – Ahmad Seth Zaharie, 26, a languages student, and Ahmad Idris Zaharie. Ahmad Seth told them he had ‘barely spoken’ to his father in the weeks before the flight disappeared, even though they shared the same house.
Ahmad Idris posted a message on Facebook thanking someone for a poem written in support of his father which he said had helped to counter the ‘wounds and sadness’ from ‘baseless accusations made against my father’.
Police interviews with family members have confirmed that the pilot – who lived with his family in an upmarket suburb of the Malaysian capital, close to the international airport – did not have any obvious financial problems.
The Mail on Sunday revealed last weekend that police had not, at that time, interviewed the pilot’s wife in detail, partly because of cultural sensitivities in asking direct questions to people in grief or distress. Daily Mail
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Aishah Zaharie Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah Faizah Khanum Mustafa Khan Featured Latest News MH370 Malaysia News MH370 MH370 hijacked Politik