Story highlights
- MH370 pilot's sister says her brother has been scapegoated
- She does not believe reports he flew a simulated route that matched the plane's eventual course
Kuala Lumpur (CNN)Nearly two-and-a-half-years after the disappearance of flight MH370, the sister of the chief pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah still "thinks of him the first thing in the morning and cries for him the last thing at night."
Sakinab Shah struggles to control her emotions as she talks about her brother, who was in charge of the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 when it disappeared from radar screens in the early morning of March 8, 2014.
Even though an investigation by Malaysian police found no evidence that Zaharie was suffering any personal or financial stresses at the time, his sister says that he remains a "scapegoat" and that she has to defend him.
'The FBI did their tests'
Report: MH370 pilot flew similar simulated route 02:36
Sakinab spoke to CNN from her home in Kuala Lumpur days after a piece in New York Magazine claimed that new evidence supporting the theory that pilot suicide caused the plane's disappearance.
The magazine quoted a leaked document from an FBI investigation that showed deleted files had been recovered from Zaharie's home-built flight simulator.
They reportedly revealed he had plotted a course into the deep southern Indian Ocean -- a course that closely matched the final flight MH370 is thought to have taken. Investigators said the simulator files had been created just weeks before the jet disappeared, according to the document.
But Zaharie's sister dismisses the claim, saying it was a "fabrication."
"They did their tests in 2014, there was nothing incriminating in his activities," she says.
"The FBI did their tests ... if there was anything, the police would be the first people to know. That's why this story has been dismissed."
"He's been made a scapegoat from the beginning. This latest accusation? Oh my God. Heaven forbid."
Sakinab said that, according to Zaharie's wife and children, the simulator had not been working for at least a year before MH370's final flight. The family could not be reached for comment.
Malaysian authorities also refused repeated requests to comment on the New York Magazine report.
Australian authorities say reports about the simulator have jumped to conclusions. Data from the simulator doesn't reveal anything about what happened aboard MH370, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said. It only shows a "possibility" of planning and provides a "piece of information," Transport Minister Darren Chester said.
Photos: The search for MH370
Two years after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went missing, a relative of one of the passengers burns incense in Beijing on March 8, 2016. Flight 370 vanished on March 8, 2014, as it flew from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing. There were 239 people on board.
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Photos: The search for MH370
On July 29, police carry a piece of debris on Reunion Island, a French territory in the Indian Ocean. A week later, authorities confirmed that the debris was from the missing flight.
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Photos: The search for MH370
Staff members with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau examine a piece of aircraft debris at their laboratory in Canberra, Australia, on July 20. The flap was found in June by residents on Pemba Island off the coast of Tanzania, and officials had said it was highly likely to have come from Flight 370. Experts at the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is heading up the search for the plane, confirmed that the part was indeed from the missing aircraft.
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Photos: The search for MH370
In late February, American tourist Blaine Gibson found a piece of plane debris off Mozambique, a discovery that renewed hope of solving the mystery of the missing flight. The piece measured 35 inches by 22 inches. A U.S. official said it was likely the wreckage came from a Boeing 777, which MH370 was.
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Photos: The search for MH370
Relatives of the flight's passengers console each other outside the Malaysia Airlines office in Subang, Malaysia, on February 12, 2015. Protesters had demanded that the airline withdraw the statement that all 239 people aboard the plane were dead.
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Photos: The search for MH370
A police officer watches a couple cry outside the airline's office building in Beijing after officials refused to meet with them on June 11, 2014. The couple's son was on the plane.
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Photos: The search for MH370
Members of the media scramble to speak with Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, director general of Malaysia's Civil Aviation Department, at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on May 27, 2014. Data from communications between satellites and the missing flight was released the day before, more than two months after relatives of passengers said they requested it be made public.
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Photos: The search for MH370
Operators aboard the Australian ship Ocean Shield move Bluefin-21, the U.S. Navy's autonomous underwater vehicle, into position to search for the jet on April 14, 2014.
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Photos: The search for MH370
A member of the Royal New Zealand Air Force looks out of a window while searching for debris off the coast of western Australia on April 13, 2014.
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Photos: The search for MH370
The HMS Echo, a vessel with the British Roya; Navy, moves through the waters of the southern Indian Ocean on April 12, 2014.
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Photos: The search for MH370
A Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion, on a mission to drop sonar buoys to assist in the search, flies past the Australian vessel Ocean Shield on April 9, 2014.
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Photos: The search for MH370
A relative of a missing passenger cries at a vigil in Beijing on April 8, 2014.
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Photos: The search for MH370
Australian Defense Force divers scan the water for debris in the southern Indian Ocean on April 7, 2014.
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Photos: The search for MH370
A towed pinger locator is readied to be deployed off the deck of the Australian vessel Ocean Shield on April 7, 2014.
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Photos: The search for MH370
A member of the Royal New Zealand Air Force looks at a flare in the Indian Ocean during search operations on April 4, 2014.
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Photos: The search for MH370
On March 30, 2014, a woman in Kuala Lumpur prepares for an event in honor of those aboard Flight 370.
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The sole representative for the families of Flight 370 passengers leaves a conference at a Beijing hotel on March 28, 2014, after other relatives left en masse to protest the Malaysian government's response to their questions.
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Photos: The search for MH370
A member of the Royal Australian Air Force is silhouetted against the southern Indian Ocean during the search for the missing jet on March 27, 2014.
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Flight Lt. Jayson Nichols looks at a map aboard a Royal Australian Air Force aircraft during a search on March 27, 2014.
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Photos: The search for MH370
People in Kuala Lumpur light candles during a ceremony held for the missing flight's passengers on March 27, 2014.
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Photos: The search for MH370
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, center, delivers a statement about the flight on March 24, 2014. Razak's announcement came after the airline sent a text message to relatives saying it "deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH 370 has been lost and that none of those onboard survived."
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Photos: The search for MH370
Grieving relatives of missing passengers leave a hotel in Beijing on March 24, 2014.
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Photos: The search for MH370
A passenger views a weather map in the departures terminal of Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 22, 2014.
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Photos: The search for MH370
A Chinese satellite captured this image, released on March 22, 2014, of a floating object in the Indian Ocean, according to China's State Administration of Science. It was a possible lead in the search for the missing plane. Surveillance planes were looking for two objects spotted by satellite imagery in remote, treacherous waters more than 1,400 miles from the west coast of Australia.
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Photos: The search for MH370
Satellite imagery provided by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority on March 20, 2014, showed debris in the southern Indian Ocean that could have been from Flight 370. The announcement by Australian officials raised hopes of a breakthrough in the frustrating search.
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Photos: The search for MH370
Another satellite shot provided by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority shows possible debris from the flight.
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Photos: The search for MH370
A distraught relative of a missing passenger breaks down while talking to reporters at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 19, 2014.
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Photos: The search for MH370
On March 18, 2014, a relative of a missing passenger tells reporters in Beijing about a hunger strike to protest authorities' handling of information about the missing jet.
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Photos: The search for MH370
U.S. Navy crew members assist in search-and-rescue operations in the Indian Ocean on March 16, 2014.
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Photos: The search for MH370
Members of the Chinese navy continue search operations on March 13, 2014. After starting in the sea between Malaysia and Vietnam, the plane's last confirmed location, search efforts expanded west into the Indian Ocean.
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Photos: The search for MH370
A Vietnamese military official looks out an aircraft window during search operations March 13, 2014.
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Photos: The search for MH370
Malaysian air force members look for debris near Kuala Lumpur on March 13, 2014.
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Photos: The search for MH370
Relatives of missing passengers wait for the latest news at a hotel in Beijing on March 12, 2014.
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Photos: The search for MH370
A member of the Vietnamese air force checks a map while searching for the missing plane on March 11, 2014.
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Photos: The search for MH370
A Vietnamese air force plane found traces of oil that authorities had suspected to be from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, the Vietnamese government online newspaper reported on March 8, 2014. However, a sample from the slick showed it was bunker oil, typically used to power large cargo ships, Malaysia's state news agency, Bernama, reported on March 10, 2014.
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Photos: The search for MH370
A U.S. Navy Seahawk helicopter lands aboard the USS Pinckney to change crews on March 9, 2014, before returning to search for the missing plane in the Gulf of Thailand.
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Photos: The search for MH370
Buddhist monks at Kuala Lumpur International Airport offer a special prayer for the missing passengers on March 9, 2014.
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Members of a Chinese emergency response team board a rescue vessel at the port of Sanya in China's Hainan province on March 9, 2014.
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The rescue vessel sets out from Sanya in the South China Sea on March 9, 2014.
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Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, center, arrives to meet family members of missing passengers at the reception center at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 8, 2014.
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Photos: The search for MH370
A relative of two missing passengers reacts at their home in Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014.
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Photos: The search for MH370
Chinese police at the Beijing airport stand beside the arrival board showing delayed Flight 370 in red on March 8, 2014.
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Malaysia Airlines Group CEO Ahmad Juahari Yahya, front, speaks during a news conference at a hotel in Sepang on March 8, 2014. "We deeply regret that we have lost all contacts" with the jet, he said.
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'I knew him inside out'
Despite their 17-year difference in age, there is no doubting the strength of the bond between Sakinhab and her younger brother, who she calls Ari.
"Even when he became a grandfather I still looked upon Ari as my own child, my own son and whatever problems he encountered I would be the first he would come to," she says.
"I knew him like the back of my hand. I knew him inside out."
Asked to describe her brother, Sakinab pauses, thinking deeply, before saying he was "very loving, wonderfully considerate and generous. A very, very generous younger brother -- in fact most generous one of our family."
Zaharie was the second-youngest of nine children, he won a scholarship to university but instead chose to pursue a career in aviation.
"He was a young boy, 14 or 15, when he fell in love with airplanes," Sakinab says.
Her brother completed his pilot's license in the Philippines and in 1981 joined Malaysian Air Systems (MAS), where he notched up more than 18,000 hours flying time.
Sakinab says the last time she saw him was at a family lunch a couple of weeks before the flight disappeared
"He was his normal self. If you met him you would like him. Very boisterous, fun-loving guy, he was teasing his nieces and offering his opinions. Among us he was the most opinionated."
'I was screaming'
On the day of MH370's disappearance, Sakinab learned it was her brother's plane when she saw his photo on television.
"I was screaming. I was all alone in the house. I was screaming 'no, no, Ari, Ari.' He'd been flying for over 30 years, he was so senior, he knew what he was doing."
Initially the family avoided talking to the press, but as speculation over the plane's disappearance and the involvement of the pilots grew, Sakinab decided she must defend her brother. The family posted three short films about him on YouTube.
"There was so much talk, so many accusations I thought we should tell the world what he was like. We wanted to show he was no crackpot. He was a normal family man, normal father, grandfather, pilot, and instructor."
She also dismissed claims that Zaharie and his wife Faiza Khanum had severe marital problems, and may have been in the process of divorcing.
"They had 30 years and three children and they are still together. I would not deny that off and on they had problems. But not to the point that would cause him to want to commit this crime."
She also said there were no financial problems in the family and that, although a supporter of jailed Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, his support of Anwar's party was a "momentary fancy."
While she still doesn't know what's happened to her brother, Sakinab says she has accepted that the plane must have crashed and she and her family have said their goodbyes to the boy they once called Ari.
"But he's always here. I speak about him in present tenses. It's so surreal that he's gone."
"And so hard."
