Kuala Lumpur - A senior Malaysian official on Thursday said the pilot of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 had plotted a flight path into the Indian Ocean in his flight simulator at home, but that the simulation does not prove he crashed the missing plane.
Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, the pilot of the missing plane, plotted the flight path into the Indian Ocean but it was just one of the thousands of routes on his home simulator, Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said.
"There is still no evidence to confirm that Captain Zaharie deliberately flew the plane into the Indian Ocean," he told reporters at his office in the federal government centre of Putrajaya.
"Just based on this, we cannot confirm he did it," he added.
Some experts had suggested the disappearance of the Beijing-bound flight MH370, with 239 people on board, on March 8, 2014 was a case of pilot murder-suicide.
The speculation was triggered by a US magazine report last month that an FBI analysis of data found in the flight simulator owned by the plane's captain showed he conducted a simulated flight to the Indian Ocean a few weeks before the plane vanished along a similar route.
Malaysian police chief Inspector General Khalid Abu Bakar earlier dismissed the pilot murder-suicide theory as "not true."
The investigation on the disappearance is still ongoing, he said, adding that only the recovery of the missing plane's black box could provide answers as to what happened to the aircraft.
Pieces of debris from MH370 have been discovered in South Africa, Mozambique, Mauritius and Reunion Island, but so far searchers have yet to find the main wreckage.
DPA