KUALA LUMPUR, May 3 — Investigators have only retrieved “some” of the deleted data from the flight simulator belonging to MH370’s Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar revealed today, over a month after US officials reported no leads from their probe on the avionic equipment.

The Malaysian police chief would not divulge further information on the matter, however, only saying that the process of recovering such data is a difficult one, even with the aid of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

“We have only retrieved some of the data from the simulator.

“I cannot reveal further as it is still under investigation,” he was quoted as saying by The Star Online.

The Inspector-General of Police (IGP) added that to date, the police have recorded statements from 311 people, including foreigners.

On March 28, 20 days after MH370 went missing, the New York Times cited anonymous sources as saying that the FBI have not recovered any incriminating evidence from the hard drives and a flight simulator belonging to Zaharie and his co-pilot First Officer Fariq Ab Hamid.

According to two unnamed individuals informed of the US investigators’ findings, information obtained from the items taken from the homes of the two aviators on March 15 yielded few clues that could further the probe into the plane’s disappearance on March 8 with 239 people on board.

But one of the sources, a former US law enforcement agent, said this did not mean that the data should be discarded.

“Something on the drive which does not seem important today could be, when viewed with additional data obtained from the background of the individual, his other activity, interviews and data from the flight recorded,” the source told the NYT.

Malaysia announced on March 15 that MH370 was diverted from its path to Beijing through deliberate action and that it was focusing investigations on the 12 crew and 227 passengers on board.

Attention has fallen most on the two pilots — Zaharie and Fariq— as investigators insist the circumstances of the plane’s diversion required piloting and avionics expertise.

After Zaharie’s simulator was confiscated, it was revealed that the experienced Malaysia Airlines pilot had loaded several alternate routes into it to study possible safe action plans he could opt for in cases of in-flight emergencies.

CNN then reported an unnamed official as saying that the searches, initially regarded as “curious”, later turned out to be what an experienced and professional pilot would do.

The Beijing-bound aircraft took off from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) at 12.41am on March 8 and disappeared barely an hour later when it lost contact with the Subang Air Traffic Control (ATC).

At the time, the plane’s last known location was 120 nautical miles off the coast of Kota Baru in Kelantan.

Investigators, which include a massive team of experts from around the world, have so far concluded that the aircraft carrying 239 people had “ended” in the Indian Ocean, based on satellite and radar data.

But this is hundreds of kilometres away from MH370’s original flight path to Beijing.