MH370: Rogue Pilot Planned Fate of Plane; Whistleblower Fund Raised to US$100,000

Following the release of the MH370 report from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau on Thursday, Veteran serving Qantas pilot Richard Woodward, who flies A380s and has test-pilot experience on 777s, believed that a rogue pilot planned the fate of the doomed plane.

According to the ATSB report, MH370 veered away from its original course of travel three minutes after the last voice contact with the pilots transpired. The plane took the direction of the south-west over Malaysia and then made a turn on purpose south over the Indian Ocean.

If the plane had only made the first turn, the pilots were trying to fly back to Kuala Lumpur. This would have supported the possibility that the plane was on fire. However, the second deliberate turn towards the Indian Ocean was made after this.

Woodward considered that if fire happened, the pilots had the needed time to put on oxygen masks and announced mayday.

While Woodward did not rule out the possibility of hijackers, the fact that the plane's cockpit is highly secured and could not be accessed by outsiders, he believes it is more than that. He believes that the fate of the doomed flight was a result of someone's unusual behaviour.

"I'm leaning towards to fact a rogue pilot, probably the captain, planned all this," Woodwards told news.com.au.

He highly believes that someone planned the second turn thereby altering the automatic pilot.

Woodward said that the same opinion was what head of ATSB Martin Dolan was hinting when he made the announcement Thursday.

"He was obtuse, but what he meant was for the autopilot to go into that mode it had to be done by a human," he explained.

Meanwhile, "very wealthy" people are being called to make donations for the Reward MH370: The Search for the Truth whistleblower campaign.

From the first aim to raise US$3 million fund to persuade whistleblowers of coming forward, the funding is now aimed to be increased to US$100,000.

"We still believe that the reward amount must be a "life-changing" sum or genuine whistleblowers won't come forward and risk themselves. They will need enough money to disappear," Sarah Bajc told The Malaysian Insider.

Bajc, whose partner Philip Wood was onboard MH370, said that the funding will be allotted to reward the whistleblower and to hire private investigators.

"We hope to get something started, and be able to show concrete progress, even if it is just to eliminate theories that have been floating around for months. We hope this will motivate people to continue to contribute to our efforts. Investigations take time, energy and money, but if done correctly, will yield results," she said.

She added that knowing the truth behind MH370 would not just give the families their closure but the truth will also give peace of mind to all travelers worldwide.

"The disappearance of MH370 has highlighted many flaws in the aviation industry and the procedures used to screen passengers, cargo and monitor aircraft in flight," Bajc said.

Bajc said that as long as MH370 is missing fear shrouds the mind of travelers.

"The next time maybe you or I will be on board a flight that goes missing."