Malaysian investigators — with the help of the FBI — are trying to restore files deleted last month from the home flight simulator of the pilot aboard the missing Malaysia Airlines plane to see if they shed any light on the disappearance, officials said Wednesday.
Files containing records of simulations carried out on the program were deleted Feb. 3 from the device found in the home of the Malaysia Airlines pilot, Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu said.
Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told a news conference that Zaharie is considered innocent until proven guilty of any wrongdoing, and that members of his family are cooperating in the investigation.
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It was not immediately clear whether investigators thought that deleting the files was unusual. They will want to check those files for any signs of unusual flight paths that could help explain where the missing plane went.
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation by name, said the FBI has been provided electronic data to analyze.
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U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said U.S. investigators are prepared to help any way they can.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 with 239 people aboard disappeared March 8 on a night flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Malaysian authorities have not ruled out any possible explanations, but have said the evidence so far suggests the flight was deliberately turned back across Malaysia to the Strait of Malacca, with its communications systems disabled. They are unsure what happened next and why.
Investigators have identified two giant arcs of territory spanning the possible positions of the plane about 7½ hours after takeoff, based on its last faint signal to a satellite — an hourly "handshake" signal that continues even when communications are switched off. The arcs stretch up as far as Kazakhstan in central Asia and down deep into the southern Indian Ocean.