There’s still no sign of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane that vanished in mid-flight more than a week ago. <br /><br />Investigators are considering suicide in the cockpit as one possible explanation for the plane’s disappearance. <br /><br />Posts on his Facebook page suggest the pilot, 53-year-old Zaharie Ahmad Shah, was a politically active opponent of the coalition that has ruled Malaysia for the 57 years since independence.<br /><br />A day before the plane vanished, Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was convicted of sodomy and sentenced to five years in prison, in a ruling his supporters and international human rights groups say was politically influenced.<br /><br />Asked if Zaharie’s background as an opposition supporter was being examined, the first senior police officer would say only:<br />“We need to cover all our bases.”<br /><br />A flight simulator taken by police from the pilot’s house appeared to be normal.<br /><br />The co-pilot, 27-year-old Fariq Abdul Hamid, spoke the last words heard from the cockpit: “all right, good night.”<br /><br />Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, Malaysia Airlines CEO explained: <br /><br />“Initial investigation indicates to us that it was the co-pilot who basically spoke the last time it was recorded on tape,” said Yahya at a news conference on Monday.<br /><br />When a reporter asked if he had a “recording of that,” Yahya replied: “The recording is with air-traffic control.”<br /><br />Satellite data suggests the missing plane could be anywhere in either of<br />two vast corridors that arc through much of Asia: <br /><br />A southern corridor stretching south from west of Sumatra into the southern Indian Ocean west of Australia, and a northern corridor from Laos to the Caspian. <br /><br />Kazakhstan, at the end of the northern arc, said it had not detected any “unsanctioned use” of its air space the day the plane disappeared.
