MH370 - Mystery Solved

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INTRODUCTION

The disappearance of MH370 is widely viewed as one of the greatest mysteries in the history of aviation. What could cause a huge passenger airplane to simply disappear into the night? Evidence shows that MH370 flew to the southern Indian Ocean, and that it is now resting at the bottom of the sea.

When the investigation authorities suspended the official search for MH370 on 17 January 2017, after nearly three years of searching, many people were disappointed by the lack of definitive answers as to what caused the airplane to disappear. The hope for answers was renewed when a privately funded search for wreckage was restarted in January 2018. Once more, the renewed search has failed to find the wreckage.

The uncertainty as to what happened to MH370 has left room for outside experts to fill the void with differing theories and viewpoints. Most of these outside experts have little or no experience in actual airplane accident investigation.

The searches for the wreckage of MH370 were based on a belief by the investigation authorities that for more than six hours the airplane was tracking to the southern Indian Ocean as an unpiloted airplane. Their belief has been that during that time, MH370 was flying on autopilot, without pilot input, and that it eventually ran out of fuel. They believe that at the end of its flight MH370 entered an out-of-control high-speed descent, followed by a high-speed crash into the ocean.

The evidence that I will present proves that the unpiloted airplane theory is not correct. The airplane did not dive at high speed into the ocean. Basic investigation techniques substantiate a very different scenario: the disappearance of MH370 was a man-made event. The evidence shows that the airplane was under the complete control of a pilot throughout the flight, and at the end of its flight, MH370 was intentionally ditched (landed in a controlled way) on the ocean surface.

The disappearance of MH370 was a deliberate, pre-planned act, conducted by a pilot who followed the exact sequence of events that he intended to follow. The pilot’s intention was to fly the airplane to a pre-determined remote location in the southern Indian Ocean, and to ditch the airplane in such a way that it would remain intact, and to cause the airplane to sink to the depths of the ocean without leaving a trace.

Had the pilot’s plan worked out exactly as he intended, the disappearance of MH370 would indeed have remained as one of the world’s great mysteries. It would not have been possible to determine where the airplane went, or to determine how the flight ended.

Fortunately, there were two shortcomings in his planning, and because of these two shortcomings, evidence was left behind about what happened. First, the pilot was unaware that he could not disable the airplane’s systems in such a way as to make the airplane completely disappear from all electronic tracking. Second, he did not anticipate that pieces of the airplane would be dislodged during the controlled ditching, and that the dislodged pieces would be sufficiently buoyant to float until they reached the shoreline.

The evidence to support a deliberate act is very clear. I will explain how a basic and logical step-by-step investigation process can be used to uncover and analyze the evidence. For example, you will see proof that as it approached and entered the water at the end of its flight, the airplane was flying with its wings level – they were not tilted to either side. The airplane was in a landing attitude, with its nose pitched slightly up. It was flying at a normal landing speed, and ready for a controlled ditching on the ocean surface.

You will see how the damage patterns on two recovered wreckage pieces (the right flaperon, and a section of the right outboard flap) prove that the landing flaps were extended (down) when the airplane settled into the water. You will understand the significance of the landing flaps being extended – how the flaps could not have been extended unless a pilot intentionally selected them to the extended position. By understanding the available evidence, you will see that at the end of its flight, MH370 was being flown by a pilot who was intentionally executing a controlled ditching.

You will also see that through the use of standard investigation techniques, and simple reasoning, other theories can be dismissed, including the high-speed-dive theory supported by the official investigation.

Why Did the Official Investigation Get It Wrong?

An obvious question here would be: if the evidence is so clear to support the pilot-controlled ditching theory, and to dismiss the high-speed-dive theory, why did the official investigation get it wrong? There is no easy answer to that question. I will address it in greater detail later, but I offer the following here.

In the early part of the official investigation, they discovered that (despite his best efforts) the pilot had not completely cut off all electronic communication with the airplane. The airplane continued to have automatic hourly contact with a satellite. That electronic contact left behind data that was used by the official investigation to reconstruct the airplane’s basic flight path. The official investigation became focused on the satellite data, looking for clues about where to search for wreckage.

Over time, the official investigation used the satellite data to (mistakenly) conclude that during its flight southbound, MH370 had flown without a functioning pilot. Their assumption was that the airplane flew at a normal cruising altitude until it ran out of fuel. They then used their calculated location for fuel exhaustion as a starting point from which to develop their search area coordinates.

The unpiloted airplane scenario became entrenched in the collective thinking. Later on, as the evidence from damage patterns on the recovered wreckage pieces became available, that evidence was either overlooked, or misinterpreted. It seems the investigators simply lacked the specific expertise required to correctly identify and interpret that evidence.

It appears that throughout the official investigation, the energy and focus was on the work of the people interpreting the satellite-related data. It appears that the intensity of this work, and the passion and world-class expertise of those engaged in it, pulled the focus of the investigation in that direction, and away from the basic wreckage analysis investigation.

The Disappearance of MH370 Was A Deliberate Act

From the very start, the overriding question in the disappearance of MH370 was whether it could be a deliberate act by one of the pilots. In my view, right from the beginning the evidence pointed in that direction. Later, I will explain this in detail, but the basics are this: the first known anomaly was the disappearance of the electronic radar signal from the airplane (the transponder signal); the transponder signal was lost as the result of a lead event; the lead event being whatever caused the transponder signal to disappear.

The disappearance of the transponder signal (the first known anomaly) was either a technical failure event, or it was a deliberate act. The basic follow-on anomalies included the complete loss of radio contact with the pilots, the loss of routine (automatic) electronic messaging from the airplane, the changing track of the airplane, and the long flight south over the ocean. From a logical investigation perspective, this sequence by itself placed the likelihood of this being a technical failure event at low, and the likelihood of it being a deliberate act at high.

The turning point for the official investigation, away from the unpiloted airplane theory and toward the deliberate act theory, should have come on 29 July 2015 with the discovery of the flaperon from the right wing. The physical evidence available from examining the flaperon should have proven to the official investigation that the aircraft’s flaps were extended (down) when it entered the water, and that the airplane was at a speed consistent with a pilot-controlled ditching.

After the recovery of the flaperon, there should have remained little doubt that a pilot was controlling MH370 at the end of its flight. Subsequent wreckage discoveries, and in particular a section from the right outboard flap that was found on 10 May 2016, should have added to the level of confidence that this event was a pilot-controlled ditching.

In fact, as you will see, the evidence from all twenty recovered wreckage pieces from MH370 confirm this was a controlled ditching event, and yet the official investigation continued to support their conclusion that MH370 was an unpiloted airplane.

Accident vs. Intentional Criminal Act

Aircraft accidents almost never result from a single cause. A typical accident investigation requires complex analysis. Accident reports contain detailed explanations involving long chains of events which point to and support multiple findings and causes. A successful accident investigation results in recommendations for accident prevention.

The investigation into the disappearance of MH370 is different, because MH370 was not an accident. MH370 has only one cause. It was caused by an intentional criminal act, perpetrated by one individual. There is no complex sequence of failures like there would be in an accident scenario. MH370 can be explained by one single cause, that being the conduct of the pilot.

The simplicity of the disappearance of MH370 comes down to this: either it was a criminal act, or it was not. Either MH370 was caused by some technical event, which would indeed make it an...