The political views of the pilot of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 370 are now coming under scrutiny as the search now involves 25 countries looking along two arcs stretching from the Aral Sea to the Indian Ocean.

The arcs were determined by the amount of fuel the Boeing 777-200ER had – enough to get to Beijing – and electronic signals it continued to exchange with a satellite over the Indian Ocean.  The data determined the distance from the satellite to the plane.  But without a second source to triangulate the signal, investigators realize the plane could have pinged the satellite from anywhere on the arc drawn across the earth’s surface.

Meanwhile, Malaysian investigators are trawling through the backgrounds of the pilots, crew and ground staff who worked on a missing jetliner for clues as to why someone on board flew it perhaps thousands of miles off course.  But some photos have appeared on the Internet that raise question about pilot, 53-year-old Zaharie Ahmad Shah. 

He was deeply concerned about Malaysian politics, specifically, the conviction of opposition figure Anwar Ibrahim on sodomy charges that many human rights advocates believe were trumped up just a day before the plane vanished.  He had been photographed earlier wearing a T-shirt reading “Democracy is Dead”.

Malaysia Airlines has said it did not believe Zaharie would have sabotaged the plane, and colleagues were incredulous.

“Please, let them find the aircraft first.  Zaharie is not suicidal, not a political fanatic as some foreign media are saying,” a Malaysia Airlines pilot who is close to Zaharie told Reuters.  “Is it wrong for anyone to have an opinion about politics?”