A former Australian naval officer claims authorities were searching in the wrong area for plane MH370 a year after the flight mysteriously disappeared.
Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared over the South China Sea during its journey from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China, on March 8, 2014.
The baffling case made headlines around the world when the plane, which had 239 people on board, including six Australians, apparently disappeared without a trace.
Peter Waring was appointed deputy director of operations for the search in September 2014, but said he began to have “serious concerns” about how the investigation was being carried out in May 2015.
Former naval officer Peter Waring was appointed deputy director of operations for the search in September 2014, but said he began to have “serious doubts” about how the investigation was being conducted in May 2015.
Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 disappeared over the South China Sea during a flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China, on March 8, 2014 (file image)
“At several points we made it look like we had a very good idea where it was, but that wasn’t the case,” he told Sky News.
“We had absolutely, more or less, almost nothing.
“Over time, the operation became wrapped in an armor of bureaucracy, so to speak, and that made it more difficult to change course.”
His comments come ahead of the release of his documentary by Sky News. MH370: ten years later On tuesday night.
Waring, a former Navy lieutenant, said that despite evidence suggesting the plane could be in another area, the search operation was unable to change course.
“We had sort of chained ourselves to this particular area and weren’t flexible to look elsewhere when there was evidence to suggest that maybe it was somewhere else,” he said.
He said that by mid-2015, enough seafloor had been covered to rule out the “leading assumption” that the plane had crashed in the Indian Ocean near an area known as the Seventh Arc.
Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 disappeared over the South China Sea during a flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China, on March 8, 2014 (police are seen loading unidentified plane wreckage in the French Indian Ocean in July 2015)
“If that assumption had been correct, we would have found the plane at that time,” he said.
Speaking to Sky News presenter Peter Stefanovic in the documentary, Waring said there was no “plan B” in the search and they were moving away from areas where the plane was likely to be.
He also did not know why the Australian Transport Safety Bureau was chosen to lead the search operation.
“But you really have to wonder why the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is an aircraft investigation authority, not a search and rescue authority, nor an organization with expertise in conducting searches, was put in charge of one of the largest and most expensive searches in the history of humanity,” he stated in the documentary.
Waring said the upcoming 10th anniversary of MH370’s disappearance was just “another reminder of the failure” of the search mission.
“The fact that we’re no closer to finding the plane now than we were when we were spending millions and millions of dollars eight or 10 years ago,” he said.
Nearly a decade later, the wreckage of MH370 has still not been found, even though its disappearance sparked the largest multinational air and sea search ever conducted.
However, an Australian fisherman, Kit Olver, 77, claimed last year that his fishing boat stopped what appeared to be the wing of a commercial airliner in late 2014.
He claims he was fishing about 55 kilometers off the southeast coast of South Australia, in the Southern Ocean, when his net became snagged on something large.
“It was a fucking huge wing of a big airliner,” Mr Olver said.
‘I have questioned myself. I have looked for a way out of this.
‘I wish I had never seen that thing… but there it is. It was the wing of an airplane.
Since he had a pilot’s license, Olver was sure the wing was larger than any typical private plane.
Their discovery was supported by Waring, who said it was “plausible” the wreck was found in southern Australia, considering more than 20 pieces of possible remains have been discovered in Africa.