THE Malaysian government has closed the book on the MH370 mystery following the release of a new report into the disappearance of the doomed Malaysian Airlines flight.

The 1100 page report by the official safety investigation team released this afternoon reiterated Malaysia’s assertion the plane was deliberately diverted and flown for over seven hours after severing communications.

Dr Kok Soo Chon, head of the ICAO Annex 13 search team, this afternoon told reporters that investigators — from eight countries including Australia — “have finally reached a consensus” about the final moments of MH370.

Dr Chon said the team had concluded that MH370 deviated from its path and that the plane’s change in direction over the Indian Ocean was made under manual control, which “points irresistibly to unlawful interference”.

“We can confirm the turn-back,” Dr Chon said.

“We have carried out simulator sessions to determine how the aircraft turned back and we can confirm that the turn-back was made, not under autopilot, but was made under manual control.

“(It) was not because of anomalies in the mechanical system.”

Investigators have not been able to establish if the aircraft was flown by anyone other than the pilot.

Dr Chon reiterated several times in this afternoon’s press conference that “unlawful interference” could not be ruled out.

“We can also not exclude the possibility that there’s unlawful interference by a third party,” Dr Chon said.

“We cannot deny that there was a turn back. We are not ruling out any possibility.

“(But) we are not of the opinion it could be an event committed by the pilot.”

There was no evidence of a rapid change in the altitude or speed on military record to indicate that MH370 was deliberately evading radar, according to the report.

Dr Chon said investigators “couldn’t find any flaws with the aircraft”.

“There was no record of any malfunction or defect of the aircraft. None that could have contributed to the disappearance,” he said.

“It is possible that the absence of communications prior to flight path diversion was due to the systems being manually turned off, whether with intent or otherwise.

“There is no evidence to support the theory that MH370 was taken over by remote control.

“In conclusion, the team is unable to determine the real cause for the disappearance of MH370.

“This is not the final report.”

Dr Chon also said they could not rule out the “possibility of intervention by a third party” when it came to their examination of the flight’s cargo.

The plan was carrying 4566kg of mangosteens and 221kg of lithium-ion batteries.

Dr Chon admitted the cargo had not gone through x-ray screening because there was not a machine big enough but said the analysis of previous shipments of mangosteen and batteries suggested procedure had been followed.

Larger machines were installed a few months after MH370 disappeared.

“There were 36 occasions were both lithium-ion batteries and mangosteens were shipped together to China between the period of January to May, and we have not found any irregularity in the packing assessment,” Dr Chon said.

“The two cargo items of interest, lithium batteries and mangosteens, were carried for a long time before and after the event and packed and loaded according to standard operating procedures.

“The possibility of intervention by a third party cannot be excluded.”

Investigators revealed a series of mistakes made at various points, such as when air traffic control did not initiate various emergency phases available to them, which delayed search and rescue operations.

Another was that MH370’s emergency locator transmitters (ELT) all malfunctioned, and that “there have been reported difficulties with ELT signals if an aircraft enters the water”.

Grace Nathan, whose mother was on the flight, responded to the release of the report on Facebook, criticising the air traffic failures as “mind-boggling”

“Four years on, we are none the wiser,” she wrote today.

“Just because they call it a final report doesn’t mean it’s over for the next of kin.

“The search must go on. There can be no final report until MH370 is found.”

This is the final Safety Investigation Report, issued by the Malaysian ICAO Annex 13 Safety Investigation Team for #MH370.@501Awani pic.twitter.com/PjrbLhDgVo — F.A Awani (@FirdausAzil) July 30, 2018

PILOT CLEARED, FAMILIES LEFT FRUSTRATED

Sakinab Shah, the sister of the MH370 pilot Zaharie Shah, said the report put to rest the theory that her brother was responsible for the plane’s disappearance.

The findings doubled down on a past report that the flaperon was not deployed, meaning that nobody was in control.

“Damage examination indicates that the right outboard flap was most likely in the retracted position and the right flaperon was probably at, or close to, the neutral position, at the time they separated from the wing,” the new report said.

Hard copies of the long-awaited and unedited report were distributed to some 25 families of those on-board the flight earlier today as they were briefed by four members of the investigation team.

Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke said the team briefed next of kin at the transport ministry.

Family members said they were frustrated as there were many gaps in the investigations and questions left unanswered. Next of kin looked distraught after receiving the document, many sobbing or angry and saying the report offered them “no closure”. Some said that information contained in the report was incorrect.

Earlier, Mr Loke told reporters that “every word recorded by the investigation team (has been) tabled in this report”.

“It (was) tabled fully, without any editing, additions, or redactions,” he said.

Intan Maizura Othman, whose husband was a flight steward on MH370, said she was disappointed and frustrated with the result.

“Those who gave the briefing from the ministry of transport were not able to give answers as they were not (the ones) who wrote the report,” she said.

Family members also revealed the meeting descended into a “shouting match” with officials as their frustration boiled over and “unsatisfactory responses left many angry”.

Some very difficult questions being put forth by the NOK to the investigation team. There is a lack of depth in the answers and no adequate answer to some pertinent queries. — Grace S. Nathan (@gracesnathan) July 30, 2018

Years of investigations have yielded no concrete conclusion as to what downed the plane in March 2014. For more than four years the world has grappled with questions over how the Boeing 777 airliner vanished into thin air en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur. Many questions still remain. Was it all just a tragic accident? Were there sinister motives? Was the plane hijacked by somebody? Or was it the captain’s doing? But whether we ever find out what really happened to MH370 remains a mystery.

The sister of #MH370 pilot Zaharie Shah says the report had nothing negative about her brother. pic.twitter.com/QNp6HkyrC1 — Sumisha Naidu (@SumishaCNA) July 30, 2018

THE MYSTERY OF MH370

In May this year, the country called off a privately-funded underwater search for the aircraft, which became one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries when it vanished with 239 aboard en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014.

READ MORE: James Cameron says ‘it’s no surprise’ MH370 wasn’t found

READ MORE: Chief pilot says it’s time to ditch ‘ghost flight’ theory

READ MORE: MH370 families demand answers over ‘mystery’ cargo

The search led by US-based firm Ocean Infinity covered 112,000 square kilometres in the southern Indian Ocean over three months. It ended with no significant new findings.

It was the second major search after Australia, China and Malaysia ended a fruitless $200 million search across an area of 120,000 square kilometres last year.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has said the country would consider resuming the search if new clues came to light.

Three wing fragments that washed up on Indian Ocean coasts are so far the only confirmed traces of the Boeing 777 aircraft since it disappeared.

HOW A PLANE VANISHED INTO THIN AIR

The plane left Kuala Lumpur at 12.41am local time on March 8, 2014. Two hundred and thirty nine people were on board, including six Australians.

Around two hours after takeoff, the plane deviated from its planned route to Beijing, veering southwest.

READ MORE: Why did nobody raise alarm on MH370?

It sent out an automated satellite communication seven and a half hours after takeoff.

Then it disappeared altogether.

An international search followed shortly after, with a total of 26 countries searching the waters off Vietnam for any trace of the missing plane.

On May 5, Malaysia, Australia and China announced their agreement to hold an underwater search, which was led by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau — but there were no answers.

More than a year after the investigation launched, a fragment of the plane’s wing was found washed up on Reunion Island, thousands of kilometres from Kuala Lumpur.

But despite on-again-off-again searches spanning from the plane’s disappearance up to May this year, it remains a mystery.

THEORIES BEHIND THE PLANE’S DISAPPEARANCE

Experts over the years have offered a number of theories as to what happened to the plane, ranging from a mechanical defect to an intentional murder-suicide by the captain.

Oxygen deficiency: The Malaysian government and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau took the theory that passengers and flight crew — including Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah — fell unconscious due to an oxygen deficiency. One version of this theory suggests the oxygen supply was deliberately hacked.

Pilot’s murder-suicide: InMay this year, a team of aviation specialists on 60 Minutes came to the conclusion that Capt Zaharie downed the aircraft in an act of murder-suicide, having plotted a flight plan to nowhere on his home simulator.

Suggested reasons for doing this range from rumours that his marriage was in trouble, to a political protest against then-Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, as a way to destabilise the corrupt government of Najib Razak.

In May this year, a team of aviation experts slammed the murder-suicide theory as “absurd”.

Remote takeover: Earlier this year, Malaysia’s former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad suggested a remote takeover took place to counter a hijacking attempt.

“The capacity to do that is there,” he said in March.

“The technology is there. You know how good people are now with operating planes without pilots. Even fighter planes are to be without pilots.

“Some technology we can read in the press but many of military significance is not published.”

Chinese terror group: A shadowy group called the Chinese Martyrs’ Brigade claimed responsibility for the disappearance of MH370 just days after the plane vanished — but officials were sceptical and said the claim could be a hoax.

The previously unheard of group sent an email to journalists across China that read: “You kill one of our clan, we will kill 100 of you as pay back.”

But the message provided no details of what brought the flight down.

Suspicious passengers: In another theory, suspicions fell upon a pair of Iranian nationals who boarded the flight with fake passports.

But authorities concluded it was unlikely that either man had terrorist links or had anything to do with the plane’s disappearance.

— With Reuters

megan.palin@news.com.au | @Megan_Palin