A new study into the March disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 concluded the passengers lost consciousness due to a lack of oxygen several hours before the plane crashed in the Indian Ocean, the Daily Mirror reported.
All 239 people onboard MH 370 most likely succumbed to hypoxia, or oxygen starvation, at least four hours before the Beijing-bound flight went down, according to an analysis conducted by Ewan Wilson, a New Zealand-based air accident investigator.
The flight's captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, was the one who turned off the plane's oxygen supply, the report claims according to the newspaper. Oxygen masks would have automatically dropped down but the passengers would've only had 20 minutes worth of breathing time.
Shah could have survived just long enough to "execute his master plan" and crash the plane, according to the study.
Wilson, a pilot who founded his own airline, came up with the conclusion after exploring every other possible scenario. He presents the results of a four-month investigation in a new book titled "Goodnight Malaysian 370."
"One of our objectives in writing this book was, in some small way, to convey the human stories of the tragedy," Wilson said.
"Our other, more important task was to pursue the truth about what really happened; that is one small contribution we felt we could make to this whole, terrible affair," he said.
Shah became a suspect in Malaysia's investigation not long after MH 370, which took off from Kuala Lumpur, vanished from radar on March 8. The pilot was said to be "obsessed" with flying and would rush home to use his flight simulator.
A police search of the captain's home turned up a flight simulator the pilot set up. Some information on the simulator had been deleted but investigators found nothing on it to suggest Shah was planning a hijacking or suicide, according to the Mirror.
Exactly how flight MH 370 went down, or where it crashed, remains unknown.
