The much-anticipated inquest into the "disappearance and suspected death" of veteran journalist Ean Higgins, who mysteriously vanished after publishing a forensically detailed account into Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, will begin on Monday in the Forensic Medicine and Coroner's Court, Lidcombe.
A communication from NSW Communities and Justice said the inquest would be held over three days to find out what happened to Mr Higgins, who has been anonymised by the initials SD at the direction of the court.
The inquest will be presided by NSW deputy State Coroner Elizabeth Ryan. It will not be viewable by video link.
In addition to his book, The Hunt for MH370, Mr Higgins also worked on an investigative documentary MH370: The Untold Story, which aired in February, 2020.
The timing of the inquest coincides with National Missing Persons Week and yet curiously, Mr Higgins is not listed on the national register of missing people.
The journalist disappeared sometime in the second half of 2020, shortly after the MH370 story was shown on national television. The exact time and date of when he went missing has not been disclosed.
There were 239 people, including six Australians, on board the missing Boeing 777.
The crew of the aircraft, registered as 9M-MRO, last communicated with air traffic control around 38 minutes after takeoff when the flight, which had taken off from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing, was over the South China Sea on March 8, 2014.
The aircraft's disappearance sparked the most expensive search in the history of international aviation.
However, equally mysterious was that the journalist who had examined the matter more closely than any other and proposed a series of theories about what happened to the flight, also vanished.
After years of sifting through the available evidence, Mr Higgins held strongly to the view that 40 minutes into the flight, Captain Zaharie Shah deliberately depressurised the aircraft and that there was a political cover-up over the incident which led the sea search in the wrong direction.
The Malaysian government received significant criticism, especially from family members in China, for failing to disclose information promptly during the early weeks of the search.
Ean Higgins worked for three major national newspapers in Australia as a reporter, column editor, chief of staff, and foreign correspondent for about 40 years.
