370 mystery: Pilots, passengers under scrutiny
Until authorities know what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, they'll look for clues in the histories of everyone on board, CNN reported.
The cruel reality is that every one of the 239 people on board is both a possible victim and a possible suspect -- until proven otherwise.
Already, some passengers and the pilots have fallen under increased scrutiny, and more are likely to come into focus as the search for answers continues.
"You have to look at everybody that got onto that plane," Bill Gavin, former assistant director of the FBI in New York, told CNN's "The Lead with Jake Tapper" on Monday.
"You can start peeling the onion there by eliminating some of the people immediately -- you know, like children, and maybe very elderly people, or infirmed people. You might be able to eliminate those folks.
"But, by the same token, you really have to look through the whole category of people that are on the plane," he said.
Malaysia's Prime Minister has said that somebody deliberately steered the plane off course. That means the pilots have become one obvious area of focus.
On Saturday, Malaysian police searched Zaharie's home. The 53-year-old pilot and father of three lives in an upscale, gated community in Shah Alam, outside Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur.
Malaysian police said Sunday they were still investigating a flight simulator seized from that house.
It's somewhat common among aviation enthusiasts to use online flight simulator programs to replicate various situations.
The pilot's political beliefs have also being questioned. Zaharie is a public supporter of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.
Just hours before the flight took off, a court ordered Anwar to prison on charges of sodomy, a sentence the opposition leader says is a political vendetta.
Despite the timing of the decision, there is no evidence to tie the plane's disappearance to the pilot or his politics.
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