Four Corners: May 19

On Monday, Four Corners takes a closer look at the mystery of Flight MH370 as reporter Caro Meldrum-Hanna nabs the first TV interview with the family of the pilot, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah.

“It’s without precedent. How can a modern jet airliner just disappear?”

The truth is Flight MH370 didn’t just disappear…

This week Four Corners reporter Caro Meldrum-Hanna forensically charts what happened in the minutes and hours after the Boeing 777 aircraft stopped communicating with authorities on the ground. The program raises many crucial questions about what went wrong with the emergency response and reveals new information about the sequence of events that night.

Travelling to Malaysia, Meldrum-Hanna speaks to the family of the pilot and prime suspect, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, in their first television interview.

On the 8th March 2014 at 7:24am (Malaysia time), Malaysia Airlines released a statement revealing it had lost contact with a Boeing jet airliner, Flight MH370. But at the time this announcement was made, MH370 was actually still flying. The world didn’t know that MH370 had slipped through the watch of multiple authorities on the ground.

The question is: with so many people on board, how could this happen?

In a one-on-one interview, Four Corners asks Malaysia’s Defence Minister, Datuk Hishammuddin Hussein, to explain who is responsible for the loss of MH370 and the challenges involved in this unprecedented tragedy. The interview is revealing.

If the Malaysian Government is unwilling to accept responsibility for what happened, the program speaks to others who want officials to be accountable. Asked about the mistakes made in the search, one former Malaysian Defence Force officer is clear what the country’s current military leaders should do:

“I think they should leave the service for other people to serve the country.”

Monday 19th May at 8.30pm on ABC1.