No ‘smoking gun’ in probe into pilots of MH370, reports CNN

Investigations into the pilot and co-pilot of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has not turned up any "smoking gun", a US official close to the probe told CNN.

This includes an ongoing FBI review of the hard drives retrieved from the homes of both Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah and first officer Fariq Abdul Hamid, and a flight simulator from the pilot's home.

"They have accessed the data," the official said. "There is nothing that's jumping out and grabbing us right now."

A Malaysian government official told CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes yesterday that authorities have found nothing negative in 19 days of investigating the two pilots that has led to any motive, be it political, suicidal or extremist.

It reported that authorities have also so far found nothing suspicious in the investigations into the 10 other crew members and the 227 passengers.

The plane's disappearance 20 days ago appears to have stumped American investigators who say that there are "counterarguments to every theory right now". "I don't think there is a prevailing theory," an official said.

Flight MH370 vanished off the radar on March 8 shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport enroute to Beijing.

It was later revealed that the plane had made a turn back towards Peninsular Malaysia and authorities said the aircraft's communications systems, including the transponder, were deliberately switched off.

Focus of the investigations then turned to the two pilots; Zaharie in particular, as he had the necessary knowledge and experience.

Police are also expected to interrogate Zaharie's wife Faizah Khanum Mustafa Khan to shed more light into the pilot's life.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced on Monday that, based on new satellite information, flight MH370 had ended in the southern Indian Ocean, where several sightings of possible debris from the plane have been spotted.

Earlier today, Thailand's Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency released satellite photographs showing about 300 objects floating in the southern Indian Ocean.

CNN reported that the objects, photographed on Monday, are between 2 meters and 15 meters in size, too small for the satellite that captured the images to resolve distinct shapes, according to Thai officials.

When photographed, they were about 201 kilometers away from the spot where a French satellite captured a floating group of objects on Sunday.

Searchers have yet to find any of the objects shown in satellite images, going back to last week when Australian authorities revealed their analysis of commercial satellite images showed a promising group of objects some 2,500 kilometers off the country's west coast. – March 27, 2014.