Criminal Investigations
Criminal Investigation for flight MH370
Following the loss of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 on Saturday, 8 March 2014 the Royal Malaysia police commenced an Investigation under Section 130C of the Malaysian Penal Code.
The Royal Malaysia Police (RMP), also known as Polis Diraja Malaysia (PDRM), did provide information to the Malaysian ICAO Annex 13 Safety Investigation Team for MH370 but the Annex 13 Team were conducting a Safety Investigation as required by Annex 13 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation. Investigations under the requirements of Annex 13 do not apportion blame or liability. Simply put, Annex 13 Investigations attempt to find a cause for an aircraft accident or incident and recommend ways to prevent that from occurring again; to determine What happened and How to improve safety for the future. Many people, particularly family and friends of those on-board MH370 were understandably frustrated by the Annex 13 Investigation.
What everyone really wanted to know was 'Who did it', Who diverted flight MH370 and Why?
This is the kind of information that is the outcome of a Criminal Investigation. The information typically becomes public knowledge when a person is charged with offences and the case is heard in a Court. That has never happened.
In the case of the missing aircraft, flight MH370, the Royal Malaysia Police have never released an official Report. Progress on the criminal investigation was occasionally in the media, such as the seizure of Captain Shah's personal flight simulator, or updates on the increasing number of people who had been interviewed, but nothing significant.
When the Australian Transport Safety Bureau was responsible for the surface search for MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean the ATSB requested information about the deleted data recovered from Captain Shah's flight simulator. According to protocol the ATSB asked the Australian Federal Police to communicate the request to the Royal Malaysia Police. This is documented in The Operational Search for MH370 published by the ATSB in 2017. The Annex 13 Team referred to this information as an RMP Forensic Report dated 19 May 2014. Neither the RMP, or the ATSB or the Annex 13 Team have ever released this report to the public.
However somehow a set of Folders which formed part of the RMP Investigation did get released through a Twitter account, was shared on sites such as Dropbox and Scribd, and has been available to numerous journalists, authors and website contributors. The Folders are described here, and the flight simulator data has been analysed here, but it is clear that the contents of these Folders contain personal information and are also marked with various levels of security classification.
The Royal Malaysia Police also requested assistance from the FBI and Interpol.
In France the BEA conducted an investigation of the flaperon retrieved from Reunion Island, and the legal system in France initiated a Judicial Review.
In addition to the various police agencies, one could reasonably assume that intelligence agencies such as the CIA, MI6, ASIO and others have files on MH370. Whatever exists is unlikely to ever be made public, so cannot be documented here.