A British Boeing 777 pilot has claimed that the flight documents of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared about 10 years ago, point that the pilot pre-mediated a mass murder-suicide and believed that the missing aircraft lies in the Geelvinck Fracture Zone of the Southern Indian Ocean, a trench hundreds of miles long.
The Malaysia Airlines flight disappeared on March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 239 people on board, sparking the largest search in aviation history. The Malaysia Airlines flight disappeared on March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 239 people on board, sparking the largest search in aviation history.
As per a report by The Independent, Boeing expert Simon Hardy believes that the flight plan and technical log reveal last-minute changes that include an additional 3,000 kg of fuel and extra oxygen, indicating that Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah planned to direct the plane "to oblivion". He called the additions "bizarre" and did not meet the official requirements to justify the changes.
'Pilot 'meticulously planned' mass murder-suicide'
Hardy, who worked with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau during the search in 2015, said, "It’s a strange coincidence that the last engineering task that was done before it headed off to oblivion was topping up crew oxygen which is only for the cockpit, not for the cabin crew". He said the flaperon found on Reunion Island indicated there was an active pilot until the end of the flight.
There have been several theories about the mysterious disappearance, with Hardy's version being more aligned towards a pilot-assisted suicide. He determined that the pilot had to have “planned meticulously” to time the crash and avoid leaving a trace of fuel residue on the surface of the ocean that would indicate the plane’s final destination. Like other theorists, Hardy points to a depressurisation to knock the passengers unconscious.
Combined with a trail of “satellite clues” Hardy believes he has calculated the position of the missing aircraft in the southern Indian Ocean. This came as the Malaysian government on March 3 announced that the search could resume for the aircraft with Texan company Ocean Infinity on a “no find, no fee” basis.
What do we know about MH370 so far?
The last transmission from the Malaysia Airlines plane was about 40 minutes after it took off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing. Captain Shah signed off with "Good night, Malaysian three seven zero", as the plane entered Vietnamese air space, then the transponder was turned off so it could not be easily tracked.
Malaysia, Australia and China launched an underwater search in a 120,000 sq km (46,332 sq miles) area in the southern Indian Ocean, based on data of automatic connections between an Inmarsat satellite and the plane. The search, which cost about A$200 million ($143 million), was called off after two years in January 2017 with no traces of the plane found.
In 2018, Malaysia accepted a "no-cure, no-fee" offer from U.S. exploration firm Ocean Infinity for a three-month search, meaning the company would only get paid if it found the plane. That search covered 112,000 sq km (43,243 square miles) north of the original target area and also proved fruitless, ending in May 2018. However, over 30 pieces of suspected aircraft debris have been collected along the along the coast of Africa and on islands in the Indian Ocean, but only three wing fragments were confirmed to be from MH370.
The inability to locate MH370's crash site has fuelled numerous conspiracy theories, ranging from mechanical error or a remote-controlled crash, to more bizarre explanations like alien abduction and a Russian plot. In recent years, some aviation experts have said the most likely explanation was that the plane was deliberately taken off course by an experienced pilot.
(with inputs from Reuters)
