The pilot of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was likely behind the plane’s disappearance on March 8, 2014. Pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah’s friend claimed that the 53-year-old locked the co-pilot out of the cockpit and then crashed the plane in a murder-suicide.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 vanished over the Indian Ocean — less than an hour into its flight. The Boeing 777 jet was on a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur with 239 people on board. The incident is dubbed as the world’s greatest aviation mystery.

Who was Zaharie Ahmad Shah?

Zaharie, born July 31, 1961, joined Malaysia Airlines in 1981 and had 18,423 hours of flight time. He served the airline for 33 years. He had been a Boeing 777 captain for 16 years and had 8,659 hours on that aeroplane type. He had been designated as a Type Rating Instructor, and Type Rating Examiner, on the Boeing 777.

He was married and had three children.

Zaharie, a passionate cook, lived with his wife in a luxury gated community where he was said to have built his own flight simulator.

The pilot had once called Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak a “moron” on Facebook. Zaharie urged his followers: “There is a rebel in each and every one of us. Let it out!”

Aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas said told Daily Telegraph: “It should have raised serious alarm bells with the airline that you have someone flying who has such strong anti-government views. If a Qantas pilot did something like that, he would be spoken to and grounded.”