KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- A top official in the Malaysian government has finally admitted that a pilot on Malaysia Airlines MH370 had plotted a plane crash into the ocean on his home flight simulator -- just weeks before the actual jetliner disappeared.
Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai made the remarks Thursday, confirming a fact detailed by New York Magazine last month.
The claims last month said pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah had dialed a flight path into his simulator that culminated with the plane descending into the Indian Ocean. Until Friday, no Malaysian official had affirmed the claim.
The simulation was done less than a month before the disappearance of Flight 370, the report said.
However, Liow qualified his remarks with the warning that the crash flight plan was one of thousands investigators have found on Shah's home simulator.
The Boeing 777 disappeared on March 8, 2014, after departing Kuala Lumpur for Beijing. All 239 people on board are presumed dead. Most of the plane has not yet been found, but investigators did find what they believe are smaller pieces from the aircraft off the African coast in the Indian Ocean earlier this year.
