MH370 not deliberately crashed by pilot: Investigators
Canberra, May 23: Australian investigators have rejected claims that the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was deliberately brought down by the pilot.
Speculation that the jet was the subject of a "controlled ditching" into the sea was dismissed on Tuesday by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, the BBC reported.
The bureau maintains that the pilot was unconscious during the final moments. The passenger plane disappeared in 2014 while flying to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur with 239 people on board.
The official search for the wreckage of MH370, also involving Malaysia and China, was called off in January in 2017, after 1,046 days.
Investigators from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) have said that the plane was out of control when it plunged into the southern Indian Ocean.
The theory that the pilot was in full control of the plane at the time of the crash was revived of late in a new book by former Canadian air crash investigator Larry Vance, the BBC reported.
However the ATSB's search director, Peter Foley, on Tuesday defended the bureau's findings, insisting that investigators had explored all the advice and analysis provided.
"We have quite a bit of data to tell us that the aircraft, if it was being controlled at the end, it wasn't very successfully being controlled," he added.
Flight MH370 disappeared after it stopped sending communications hours into its flight on March 8, 2014.
The subsequent hunt formed one of the largest surface and underwater searches in aviation history. Underwater searches turned up nothing, but small pieces of debris from the plane were washed up on islands in the Indian Ocean and on the African coast.
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Mangaluru man duped of Rs 10.55 lakh in Instagram ‘digital gold’ investment scam
Mangaluru: A 57-year-old man has allegedly been cheated of Rs 10.55 lakh by online fraudsters who lured him into investing in a so-called digital gold trading platform through Instagram, Deccan Herald reported on Tuesday.
According to the complaint, the victim was browsing Instagram at his residence on November 12, 2025, when he received a message from an account named “Suhani Patel.” The accused initiated a friendly conversation and later persuaded him to invest in the “digital gold market,” promising high returns.
The accused subsequently shared a mobile number and sent a link via WhatsApp, asking the complainant to install an application called “Kanak Daam Exchange.” Following the instructions, the victim downloaded the app and registered.
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The accused told the complainant that all transactions would be handled through the app’s customer service. Following their instructions, the complainant contacted the customer service through the app and sent a message requesting US dollars in exchange for Indian rupees. He was then directed to transfer money to specific bank accounts provided by the accused.
Trusting the claims, the complainant transferred Rs 1,50,000, Rs 3,45,000 and Rs 5,60,000 in multiple transactions, amounting to a total of Rs 10,55,000.
Subsequently, the app displayed that his total investment had grown to Rs 60 lakh. However, when he attempted to withdraw the amount due to personal financial needs, the request was denied. On contacting customer service, he was informed that he would have to pay 30 per cent of the total amount as “tax” before any withdrawal could be processed.
Growing suspicious, the complainant reportedly consulted officials at Canara Bank, who advised him that it was a fraud and warned him not to transfer any more money. When he confronted the accused, the amount displayed in the app was allegedly reduced to zero, and he was blocked from further communication.
Despite further attempts to contact “Suhani Patel,” the accused allegedly continued to assure him that the lost money would be returned, before eventually blocking him.
The complainant stated that he was cheated between November 12, 2025 and February 27, 2026, and has urged police to take action against the fraudsters.
A case has been registered, and further investigation is underway.
