Kreindler Partners Justin Green and Marc Moller on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on PIX11 News

This is the Emmy Award-winning 11 News Closeup with your host, Marvin Scott.

Good morning, everyone. Next Wednesday will mark three years since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished in the darkness of night somewhere over the vast Indian Ocean with 239 people on board. Despite a $160 million exhaustive search effort over a 46,000-square-mile area, the plane still has not been found, making this one of the greatest aviation mysteries since the disappearance of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart's plane some 80 years ago.

Now, the theories, they abound as to what happened to Flight 370, including the possibility of murder-suicide by the pilot. Believing that all approaches had been exhausted, the three countries involved in the search decided in January to call it quits. The decision to abandon the search was made by Malaysia, China, and Australia, the three major countries involved in the search. With the support of 20 other countries, they've scoured thousands of square miles beneath the Indian Ocean looking for a needle in a haystack.

The flight left Kuala Lumpur-- just after midnight-- bound for Beijing, but dropped off radar an hour after takeoff. Satellite images led investigators to conclude the plane went down in the Indian Ocean. The plane made unexplained turns, and flight simulations indicated it spiraled in its final moments, descending thousands of feet per minute.

Justin Green and Marc Moller are aviation attorneys who are representing 50 families of the 239 victims. They have been to the search area.

Calling off the search in the area where they were looking is understandable. Stopping the search entirely is not justified. I think the search should continue. I think the aviation community demands knowing why this happened.

Marc Moller has been dealing with aviation disasters for 50 years. How, in this day and age, with all the state-of-the-art advances, can a plane and its passengers suddenly disappear without a trace?

Because the technology is not presently designed to keep track of all aircraft all the time.

Parts of the plane have been found, washed up on beaches in East Africa and elsewhere. But none has led searchers to the wreckage. Though the search is off for now, Malaysian airline officials are open to the possibility of someday resuming it. But someday, it's just not soon enough for the families of loved ones who were on that plane.

Now, aviation attorney Justin Green, who is also a pilot, along with Marc Moller, who you saw in that report, they're attorneys with the aviation law firm of Kreindler & Kreindler, and they've been investigating airline disasters and involved with them for many, many years. Thank you so much for coming in.

Now, you've been to the search area, and you've studied this situation extensively. Have you been able to come up with some plausible responses to what happened to Flight 370?

Well, as an accident investigator, you have to identify what are the known facts. And in this case, the known facts are, an airplane took off, had a normal takeoff, normal climb-out, normal transit until about the time that they were supposed to check in with Vietnam air traffic control. And the airplane went dark. The transponder, which sends a signal out to air traffic control, went off. The ACARS system, which is an airplane-to-ground communications system, stopped communicating. And then the airplane turned and then turned again and then turned again.

So what we know is, no warnings, no problems from the airplane. We know that there was no other indication of a problem-- mechanical problem with the airplane. And we also know we have three turns that had to have been made by the pilots. Now, the bigger questions are, why did the pilots turn the airplane? Did they turn it because there was a mechanical issue? Or, as many have posited, did they turn it because this was a murder-suicide conducted by one or both of those pilots?

And there was no communication. The last communication was-- Everything was normal.

--370, good night. Yeah, everything was normal. The last communication, everything was normal.

Now, what about this theory. Let's talk more about that. Marc, the former prime minister of Australia has come out and said that he believes this was a situation-- he didn't say murder-suicide. He said mass murder.

Well, if it's a murder-suicide with a plane full of people, it is a mass murder. There's no question about it.

Leaving the possibility that the pilot, if he was responsible for this, could have gotten away. Theory.

Theory. There are all sorts of theories that one can create based upon the fact that we know so little. We know what the airplane did, as Justin described. But after the airplane made the turns, we really know very, very little. The plane disappears.

It flies for several hours, obviously until there was fuel exhaustion, and then ends up in the water. Whether that's a murder-suicide, whether there was some oxygen deprivation, whether there was decompression, whether there was some kind of mechanical failure is unknown. And the problem is that until one has more information, we're stuck with theories. Let me talk a little more about this theory brought out by the former Australian prime minister that if this was a survivable landing-- because they did find part of that aircraft on an island. And they said that the aileron part of that was raised up, would indicate that it was set for a landing, and it could have been a soft landing on the water. And if it was survivable and everyone was out because of oxygen deprivation, and the pilot was still there and intended something, he could have gotten away. Sounds like something from a Robert Ludlum novel.

It's good material for a novel. But whether that actually happened is impossible to know at this point. That's the problem. There are so many imponderables, such an absence of information that we're stuck with theories. And that's the frustrating thing.

How is it-- can I--

Please, Marc-- or Justin.

The part that they found-- they found a part. The first major part of the aircraft was what's called a flaperon, which you referred to. And then there was a lot of talk about that it was set for landing. But that was all based on an expert who was basing his entire opinion on photographs.

The investigation later came out and said that they believed it was not set for landing. And that's important because they defined the search area with the assumption that the pilot was not actually flying, you know, steering the airplane, and that it basically just went in without active steering by the pilot. So the investigation is saying that it was not set for landing. I do believe that, because we have only found small parts of the aircraft, it's likely that the aircraft landed and possibly was a survivable type landing.

And if this was done intentionally, by landing it, the intent would be the aircraft would not break apart and just simply sink into the bottom of-- You know, you can speculate, but it would-- if this person was trying to disappear this airplane, landing it in a way that it didn't break apart and was much harder to find would make sense. OK.

But that's speculation.

Let's take a break and find out how is it, in this day and age-- and I asked you that question when we did that report, Marc-- how, in this day and age, can we just lose an aircraft like that? We'll find out more when PIX11 News Closeup continues.

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Back with Justin Green and Marc Moller of Kreindler & Kreindler and talking about Malaysia Air 3-7-0 which disappeared three years ago this coming Wednesday. We talked about the theory of murder, murder-suicide. What about something that was accidental, perhaps-- and we were talking about oxygen deprivation. Could something like that have happened in flight?

Well, whatever happened would have to be something that incapacitated the pilots in some fashion. So when you don't have enough oxygen, your brain doesn't work properly. If there was a problem, the first turn is totally explainable, because they basically turned back towards where they took off from. A return to base could make sense. The next two turns are less easy to explain. But hypoxia is a leading-- if you put aside mass murder or suicide, hypoxia or some sort of fire that had the same sort of effect on the pilots' brains--

Or loss of power. But it's those manual turns are what makes it all so suspect. Right.

One of the things that fits the loss of oxygen or oxygen deprivation theory is the fact that the first turn may have been an effort to get back to Kuala Lumpur. Now they're losing oxygen. They're losing ability to think clearly. They make a couple of other turns in an effort to do something, to rectify the problem, and then they run out of oxygen. They run out of steam. They can't breathe. And the last turn then sends you south until the plane runs out of fuel. So if there are two major theories, one is oxygen deprivation with the pilots trying to save the plane, and the other is an active measure by the pilots to kill the passengers.

Now, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, he was investigated by the FBI. He seemed to have a normal life, no conflicts that were evident. And he hugged and kissed his wife before he left at the airport. But they did find a simulator in his home that had the same tracking of the aircraft. That's very mystifying, isn't it?

It's mystifying. It's an interesting coincidence. Whether it relates to this flight or not, one doesn't know. Pilots frequently have simulators in their home. I can't explain, nor can anybody else, why the simulator was there, why the tracking was what it was. But if you get into the accident investigation itself, you still don't have an answer as to what happened.

But I'll tell you, the one thing about that simulation was that it had been deleted. So they were able to recreate it, find it on his system. But I think what's really important is, why do we need to find out what happens in these aviation disasters? The answer is, if this was a mass murder or suicide, the lessons learned from knowing that, three years ago, this Captain Shah or maybe his first officer did something horrific like this, safety investigators/airlines could have prevented the Germanwings disaster, where a pilot-- Or Egyptair.

Or E-- well, that was before that. But the truth is, is, right now, we have a triple seven, one of the most widely flown aircraft, disappeared three years ago, and we don't know why it disappeared. So that's when the families really need and demand that, at some point, answers about what happened to their loved one have to be found.

Answers, but what about an answer-- and the two of you have dealt extensively in aviation accident disasters. In this day and age, how can you simply lose such a giant aircraft with so many people aboard with no trace?

Well, the question invites a demand to find out. Because right now, we don't know the answer. It's the absence of an answer that demands the search continue, that the search for answers continues, so that whatever caused this is prevented from happening in the future.

Isn't there a technology out there-- there was some satellite sighting of the aircraft, and there--

The technology--

--were pings. --exists. The technology exists. The desire, the demand to implement technology that will keep track of an airplane wherever it is has not-- it's not matured to the point where the international community does something.

There were a lot of different proposals, one of which is to start streaming the information from the two black boxes, the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder which investigators use to try to determine what happened. Other proposals, you know, all have their own complications. But to me, the easiest thing would be to have a regular check-in/position reporting by airplanes to satellites so if something happens, they can find the wreckage a lot faster and find the black boxes and find out what happened, make sure it doesn't happen again.

What about that material that is recorded on those black boxes, why can't that be downloaded during flight and--

It can be. That's--

Well, that's--

That's just the point that Justin's making.

Yeah, that's the streaming issue. And that's a complication issue. I mean, you think about thousands of airplanes all up in the sky at the same time all streaming that stuff, and the cost and complication of that, and also the concern that pilots have that the cockpit voice recorder-- you know, recordings of their conversations are being downloaded, all kind of complicated for this kind of very extreme, unlikely situation where an airplane disappears and they can't find the black boxes.

Do you expect that search to resume at some point?

Hard to tell.

You're hopeful.

I'm very hopeful. I'm hopeful because, in a very narrow sense, the families are entitled to know what happened, and the aviation community needs to know what happened.

Now, you represented 50 families. Have they all settled their cases?

No, not all. Not all.

Still some still outstanding?

Still some outstanding. And the ones who settled are no less demanding of answers than the ones who haven't settled.

I have to wrap. But in conclusion, at this moment, you see as the most plausible explanation murder-suicide?

No.

Still other theories out there?

Still don't know. OK. Three years later, and we still don't know--

That's right.

--what happened to Flight 370.

Hopefully, we'll find out someday.

Marc Moller, Justin Green, thank you so much.