News, views and top stories in your inbox. Don't miss our must-read newsletter Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Passengers on flight MH370 died of oxygen starvation hours before the pilot performed a controlled ditching in the Indian Ocean, according to a new study into the disaster.

Analysis by a veteran air accident investigator suggests all 239 people lost consciousness up to four hours before the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 disappeared beneath the waves.

The most likely scenario is that pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah deliberately depressurised the cabin, thereby depriving those on board of air, the research concludes.

Although oxygen masks would have dropped down automatically from above the seats, their supply was limited to just 20 minutes.

Those unable to grab a mask, including sleeping passengers, would have passed out within the space of a few minutes.

It was also suggested on Wednesday that Chinese hackers used a computer virus to steal secret documents on the missing plane.

The entire “ghost plane”, including the cabin crew whose air supply is only marginally longer, would have slipped into a coma and died shortly after from oxygen starvation.

Captain Ahmad Shah, who may have locked his co-pilot out of the cockpit, could have survived long enough either by re-pressurising the aircraft, or from breathing his own, from a more extensive air supply to evade radar and “execute his master plan”, researchers have concluded.

He may then have performed a controlled ditching in the sea, which would explain why no debris has been found because the plane landed and sank in one piece.

The theory is the result of the first independent study into March’s disaster by the New Zealand-based air accident investigator, Ewan Wilson.

Wilson, the founder of Kiwi Airlines and a commercial pilot himself, has proposed the theory conclusion to investigators after considering “every conceivable alternative scenario”.

An earlier report from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) also concluded that passengers may have died from hypoxia.

Malaysian authorities previously named Ahmad Shah as their prime suspect, analysing everything from his bank details to mobile phone records.

His house was searched in the days after the flight disappeared and the authorities took away a flight simulator which he had set up in his home.

Captain Shah was said to be “obsessed” by flying and would come home after work to put in more time on the simulator.

Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now

FBI technicians took apart the simulator, which had deleted information on its database, however could find nothing to suggest a planned hijack or suicide.

His family, including wife Faizah, has now moved away from the gated community where they had been living in Shah Alam.

Neighbours say she was under intense pressure from the police and the media and had to leave the house.

Rumours have been rife in media reports about the breakdown of Shah’s marriage just days before the doomed flight, suggesting he could flown the plane on a suicide mission.

The new theory would put co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid in the clear after also being made a suspect in the investigation by Malaysian Police.

(Image: Alamy)

A friend of the Hamid family, who live in Shah Alam, an upmarket neighbourhood of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, said: “The family feel like Fariq has been investigated like he is a criminal.

"They have taken witness statements from all his close friends, relatives, even his fiancee, taken his possessions away, even looked at his bank details.

“And what doesn’t make it any easier is how he has been portrayed in the media as some sort of playboy, inviting girls up to his cockpit and flirting with them.

“Fariq is a good, decent boy, who always attended mosque with his father, and never went out drinking and flirting. He was the perfect citizen.

"I have known him since a child and I can tell you there is nothing whatsoever in his past that could have made him hijack or crash a plane. Nothing.”

(Image: Getty)

The imam at the family’s neighbourhood mosque, Ahmad Sharafi Ali Asrah, told the Mirror how the police had questioned Fariq’s relatives, saying: “They didn’t ask me anything. They only spoke to the family.

“Fariq was a very good boy. He used to come here a lot with his family. I have known them a long time. They are a good, religious family. They still live here, just on this road.

“I see the father. He comes still.”

A hijack from a passenger is thought by investigators to be unlikely since a locked security door on MH370 protected the cockpit.

A hijacker could potentially break down the door but emergency protocol means the moment an attack commences, the pilot immediately changes the code on the transponder to 7500, a form of instant “mayday” call.

Police believe the absence of an emergency call means any hijacking would most likely be “air piracy”, an inside job involving the pilot or co-pilot, along with members of the crew.

Shah, a married father-of-three, is an activist for Malaysia’s pro-democracy People’s Justice Party.

The day before the flight disappeared, police have discovered he attended the trial of Anwar Ibrahim, an opposition leader jailed for five years on what many believe to have been a trumped-up charge of sodomy.

Last May, Shah was photographed wearing a T-shirt saying “democracy is dead”.

Investigators have not ruled out Shah downed the plane while carrying out a bizarre political protest.

The remarkable claims are made in the book Goodnight Malaysian 370, the culmination of a four-month study into the incident which Wilson co-wrote with the New Zealand broadsheet journalist, Geoff Taylor.

Wilson, a qualified transport safety investigator, said: “One of our objectives in writing this book was, in some small way, to convey the human stories of the tragedy.

"Our other, more important task was to pursue the truth about what really happened; that is one small contribution we felt we could make to this whole, terrible affair.

“We could never have foreseen the information we uncovered, or their implications. Neither could we have imagined the horrific scenario that our research suggests took place on board that fateful plane.”