Families sobbed yesterday as Malaysia handed down its final report on missing aircraft MH370 – a report that provided no closure and seems to have destined the case to remain a mystery forever, with conspiracy theories still swirling.
Contact with the aircraft was lost for all time during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on 8 March 2014. It took 17 minutes for air traffic controllers to realise that Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 had disappeared from their screens – and four hours to launch a rescue operation.
Experts suggest that one of the pilots, probably Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, disabled communications as part of a plot to hijack the plane. There’s no proof of this so-called “rogue pilot” theory but it’s considered the most likely, though Malaysia says it is satisfied with the mental health and mental state of the pilot and co-pilot.
Officials yesterday could not rule out “interference by a third party” – probably meaning hijack.
ABC reporter David Lipson tweeted: “Families weep after receiving final report on MH370. There’s no conclusion”.
Lipson added: “Most interesting conclusion from MH370 Report: the plane was manually diverted off course and comms [communications] may have been deliberately switched off. Investigators ‘can’t rule out third party actions by someone else on board that aircraft, taking it over and doing the flying’.”
The ABC earlier reported how Queensland woman Danica Weeks had been left fuming after being given only 48 hours’ notice to attend yesterday’s government briefing on the missing flight in Kuala Lumpur.
Weeks’ husband Paul was among the 239 people aboard the Malaysia Airlines B777 when it vanished.
With two days’ notice to travel 6000 kilometres, Weeks, who lives on the Sunshine Coast, said it was impossible for her to attend, though she had wanted to be there.
The Malaysia Airlines B777 that vanished in 2014 while operating flight MH370. Photographed in 2011
The investigation was authorised to look into possible causes of the mystery, but it couldn’t find any. The report confirmed that flight MH370 did deviate from its flight path and to do this it was switched over to manual control.
“We cannot determine with any certainty the reason the plane diverted from its planned route,” said lead investigator, Kok Soo Chon.
“The team is unable to determine the real reason for the disappearance.”
A huge search was mounted but found nothing, though confirmed debris has been washed up. Ships searched for years and all they discovered was that the wreckage must be somewhere else.
Extract from yesterday’s final report:
To date, the main wreckage of MH370 has still not been found despite a 4-year search in the South Indian Ocean. However, items of debris possibly from MH370, have been found as far north as the eastern coast of Tanzania and far south as the eastern coast of South Africa. This is in addition to several islands and island nations off the east coast of the African continent. Of these, the flaperon, a part of the right outboard flap and a section of the left outboard flap were confirmed to be from MH370.
MH370 underwater search area
A few other pieces of debris were determined to be almost certain from MH370 which included some cabin interior items. Damage examination on the recovered part of the right outboard flap, together with the damage found on the right flaperon has led to the conclusion that the right outboard flap was most likely in the retracted position and the right flaperon was probably at, or close to, the neutral position at the time they separated from the wing.
Recovery of the cabin interior debris suggests that the aircraft was likely to have broken up. However, there is insufficient information to determine if the aircraft broke up in the air or during impact with the ocean. Apart from the above, no other information about in-flight emergencies, aircraft configuration or impact could be inferred from the nature and damage of the debris.
The report finishes with the fateful words:“In conclusion, the Team is unable to determine the real cause for the disappearance of MH370.”
The tragic mystery has sparked more speculation than anything else in the history of aviation. Conspiracy theories abound. Conjecture about aliens – or masters of the universe who can make aircraft disappear without trace – have bubbled up from the dark recesses of the internet. Some of the more outlandish ones (involving the survival of the entire plane and its passengers) became a lot less likely after confirmed debris from the plane washed up on remote shores of the Indian Ocean.
Theories that have circulated include:
- Plane was hijacked by stowaways hiding under the floorboards: A security analyst suggested the hijackers may not have been on the passenger list but hiding aboard the B777, perhaps in an electronics bay. While most stowaways clamber into wheel wells, some have in the past secreted themselves aboard aircraft, sometimes disguised as airport staff.
- Russians: Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered his country’s special forces to hijack the plane and fly it to Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan, Russia’s largest space launch facility. But why? This one always seemed deeply unlikely.
- Kidnapped: The plane somehow landed somewhere without leaving a radar signature of any kind. The passengers were taken hostage by a band of mysterious terrorists, or extra-terrestrials.
- Stargate, or the Hole in the Universe: A teleportation portal exists in the skies, through which the plane inadvertently flew and was teleported somewhere else through a hole in the fabric of space and time. Hmmm…
- Advanced military weapons: This, taken directly from the website www.naturalnews.com, runs as follows: “Some military entity, either human or non-human, was testing an advanced weapon capable of either instantly obliterating large airborne objects or teleporting them to another place (or dimension).”
Written by Peter Needham
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