An Australian scientist has claimed to have discovered the “perfect hiding place” of passenger plane MH370, which disappeared without a trace a decade ago.
Vincent Lyne, an associate researcher at the University of Tasmania, believed the Malaysian plane was deliberately crashed into a 6,300-metre-deep “hole” in the Broken Ridge ocean plateau in the south-eastern Indian Ocean.
A Malaysia Airlines plane carrying 239 people disappeared while flying over Vietnamese airspace on a flight to Beijing on March 8, 2014. Since its disappearance, it has become the biggest mystery in aviation history, and theories about what happened to the passengers and crew have been extensively considered.
Satellite data analysis suggested the plane likely crashed somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean off the coast of western Australia, but two major searches have failed to produce any significant findings.
Lyne said in a LinkedIn post that the deep trench in the Indian Ocean, which is home to underwater plateaus, volcanoes and deep valleys, could be the perfect hiding spot for the missing plane.
He said that the pilot of the crashed plane, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, crashed the plane deliberately because he was familiar with the area.
“This study transforms the story of MH370’s disappearance from a story of no blame at all, such as a lack of fuel in arc 7 and a high-speed dive, to a story of a master pilot’s incredible near-missing attempt in the southern Indian Ocean.”
“Its narrow steep slopes are surrounded by large ridges and other deep troughs, filled with fine sediment – a perfect hiding place.”
He said the damage to the plane indicated it was a case of a “controlled landing”.
“This vindicates beyond doubt former Canadian Chief Aircraft Crash Investigator Larry Vance’s original claim, based on his brilliant, skilled and very careful wreckage damage analysis, that MH370 had fuel and working engines when it made its masterful ‘controlled descent’ and did not suffer a high-speed fuel starvation-related crash.”
He said the exact location of the missing MH-370 plane was known at the point where the longitude of Penang Airport in Malaysia intersects with the flight path of the plane’s pilot in his home simulator.
He said that this flight path had been discovered previously but was dismissed as irrelevant by the FBI and other authorities investigating the disappearance.
“This iconic pre-designed location is home to a very deep 6,000-foot-deep sinkhole at the eastern end of Broken Ridge, a rugged and dangerous ocean environment famous for its wild fishing and new deepwater species.”
“Whether or not to search is up to the authorities and search companies, but from a science perspective, we know why previous searches failed and likewise science clearly shows where MH370 is. In short, the MH370 mystery has been comprehensively solved by science!” he said.
Researchers from Cardiff University also believe the plane was in the southern Indian Ocean on the final leg of its journey and detected the signal from a hydrophone (underwater microphone).
“Our analysis shows that clear pressure signals from previous aircraft crashes were detected on hydrophones even at distances in excess of 3,000km,” said Dr Usama Kadri, from Cardiff University’s School of Mathematics.
“In the case of MH370, official investigations concluded that the aircraft crashed near arc 7, which is the point at which the last communication between the aircraft and INMARSAT took place. [the satellite telecommunications company] dead.”
More than 30 pieces of suspected aircraft debris have been recovered off the coast of Africa and on islands in the Indian Ocean, but of these, only three wing pieces have been confirmed as belonging to MH370.
Much of the debris was used in drift pattern analysis in the hope of narrowing down the plane’s possible location. A 495-page report into the disappearance of MH370, released in July 2018, said the Boeing 777’s controls were likely deliberately manipulated to throw it off course, but investigators have not been able to determine who was responsible.
The report also highlighted errors made by the Kuala Lumpur and Ho Chi Minh City air traffic control centres and made recommendations to prevent repeat incidents.
Shah is said to have used an elaborate home-made flight simulator to make test flights over the remote southern Indian Ocean before his plane was lost under very similar circumstances.
The confidential document was obtained by: new York magazine and is part of an investigation by Malaysian police into the pilot’s final days.
The publication stated that there was strong evidence that the disappearance of MH370 was not an accident but a premeditated mass murder-suicide.
Additional reporting by institutions