The mystery of what happened to Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 may finally be solved – with one expert suggesting it could be in the “perfect hiding place”.
Vincent Lynne, a researcher at the University of Tasmania, said newly discovered signals received from the missing Boeing 777 help establish its flight pattern in the moments before it disappeared.
He argues in a Document prepared for publication in the Journal of Navigation that the signals, along with a review of debris damage by air accident investigator Larry Vance, “support the hypothesis of a controlled descent to the east,” suggesting the pilot made a premeditated decision to make the plane disappear with 239 people on board.
The theory has already been put forward before Launched by British pilot Simon Hardy.
But it challenges the long-held theory that the plane went into “an uncontrolled, gravitationally accelerated, high-speed nosedive after running out of fuel.” after deviating from its course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing for unknown reasons, according to Express.
University of Tasmania researcher Vincent Lynne is questioning the theory that Malaysia Airlines flight MH-370 went into “an uncontrolled, high-speed gravitationally accelerated fall after running out of fuel” (pictured is a simulation of the crash).
“This work changes the narrative of the disappearance of MH-370 from a faultless fuel starvation in the seventh arc, high-speed dive, to a genius pilot executing an incredible perfect disappearance in the southern Indian Ocean,” Lynne said. explained in a LinkedIn article promoting his latest publication.
‘Indeed, it would have worked had not MH-370’s right wing cut through a wave and discovered Inmarsat’s regular interrogation satellite communications system, a brilliant discovery also announced in the Journal of Navigation.’
He went on to argue that the damage to the plane’s wings, flaps and flaperons was similar to that suffered by US Airways Flight 1549 when Captain Chesley Sullenberger conducted a “controlled water landing” in January 2009.
Lynne, however, maintains that newly discovered signals received from the missing Boeing 777 and analysis of the debris suggest the pilot made a premeditated decision to make the plane disappear with 239 people on board.
The flight lost contact after deviating from its course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing for unknown reasons in March 2014.
Others have also previously suggested that pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, was responsible for deliberately crashing MH370 in a murder-suicide of shocking scale, which he committed due to problems in his personal life.
Shah had reportedly separated from his wife Fizah Khan, and was said to be furious that a relative, opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, had been sentenced to five years in jail for sodomy shortly before he boarded a plane for the flight to Beijing.
The pilot’s wife, however, angrily denied any personal problems, while other family members and friends said he was a dedicated family man who loved his job.
However, Lynne says the evidence points to the fact that the pilot intentionally crashed the plane and says it “vindicates beyond a shadow of a doubt the original claim, based on brilliant, skillful and very careful debris damage analysis by Canada’s former chief air accident investigator Larry Vance, that MH-370 had fuel and functioning engines when it suffered a masterful ‘controlled ditching’, and not a high-speed, fuel-starved crash.”
The most persistent theory has centred on the pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah (pictured), and suggestions it was a deliberate act because he was facing personal problems.
He also argued that his research provided a clear location of where the plane may have crashed, and urged that future searches for the wreck site focus on a specific section of the southern Indian Ocean.
“It is encouraging that we now know with great precision that MH-370 is where the length of Penang Airport (the runway no less) intersects the pilot-in-command flight simulator runway discovered and dismissed by the FBI and officials as ‘irrelevant,'” Lynne wrote.
‘That premeditated iconic location houses a very deep hole of 6,000 meters (6,561.68 yards) at the eastern end of Broken Ridge, within a rugged and dangerous ocean environment, famous for its wild fisheries and new deepwater species.
‘With narrow, steep slopes, surrounded by huge ridges and other deep holes, it is full of fine sediments: a perfect “hidden” spot.’
Over the years, some fragments of the plane have been discovered.
The plane has been missing for more than a decade, despite extensive searches by authorities around the world covering an area of 46,332 square miles.
Fragments of the plane have since been discovered and several theories have emerged about what – and who – caused the flight to change course in March 2014.
More than a year later, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak says part of the wing that arrived in Réunion, a French island east of Madagascar, came from MH370.
Over the next two years, 17 more pieces of debris were found that were “identified as very likely or almost certain to have come from MH370,” while two others were “assessed as probably coming from the accident aircraft.”
But Lynne is now urging officials to search the area she identified as a “high priority.”
“Whether or not there will be a search is a decision between officials and search companies, but as far as the science is concerned, we know why previous searches failed and the science clearly points to where MH-370 is,” he concluded.