Missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370: The 13 theories that could explain
where the plane is - and what happened to it
With no trace
of the missing Boeing 777 in the "ping" search area, conspiracy
theorists have tried to fill in the gaps of what we know
From an underwater mission covering 850 sq
km (320 sq mile) where acoustic "pings" were heard, the area being
searched has now been extended to around a 60,000 sq km (23,100 sq mile) zone
based on satellite data which remains disputed in some quarters.
The Australia-led search control team
estimate it could be August - next year - before this region has been covered,
and hopes of finding the Boeing 777's flight recorders are becoming
increasingly dim.
With so much uncertainty surrounding the
circumstances of MH370's bizarre disappearance, it has become rich territory
for aviation experts, bloggers and conspiracy theorists alike.
Here we round up 13 of the most prominent
theories as to where the plane ended up, and what went wrong in the first
place.
Shot down in
a military training exercise
While the Australian officials leading the
search for MH370 say they remain “absolutely convinced” it ended up in the
southern Indian Ocean, some passengers’ families – and theorists – distrust the
unprecedented satellite data analysis involved.
At the time there was a series of war games
taking place in the South China Sea involving Thailand, the US and personnel
from China, Japan, Indonesia and others, and Cawthorne has linked this to Mr
McKay’s claims to have seen a burning plane going down in the Gulf of Thailand.
Flown north
and shot down deliberately, prompting cover-up
At a stage in the investigation when it was
believed the plane could have flown for some time from where it disappeared
along either a northern or southern corridor, many posted on forums suggesting
that if it had been the former we would never hear about what happened.
Some still support this view, and former
RAF navigator Sean Maffett told the BBC that after 9/11, any unidentified airliner
entering the airspace of another country would lead to fighter jets being
scrambled.
“If the plane is in the northern arc it
could easily have been shot down,” he said. This theory also involves a
national – or possibly international – cover-up, based on the premise that no
country would want to admit to shooting down an airliner full of passengers
from all over the world.
Flown north
in the ‘shadow’ of another plane
Another theory suggests that instead of
flying south, the plane flew north in the “shadow” of another airliner around
half an hour to an hour after dropping off civilian radar.
The aviation blogger
Keith Ledgerwood argued that MH370 and Singapore Airlines flight 68
were in the same vicinity at the time, and said: “It became apparent as I
inspected SIA68's flight path history that MH370 had manoeuvred itself directly
behind SIA68 at approximately 18:00UTC and over the next 15 minutes had been
following SIA68.”
By flying a short distance behind and most
likely a little above the altitude of SIA68, also a Boeing 777, Ledgerwood said
that it would be able to appear as a single blip on radar screens.
Experts have said that the idea sounds
“feasible”, and that even if higher-resolution military radar was monitoring
SIA68 operators might have dismissed the fact that there were two objects as an
technical glitch or echo.
Tried to land
on a desert island beach
After reports that the plane had turned
left shortly following its disappearance from civilian radar screens,
speculation grew that it could have landed on a remote beach somewhere like the
Andaman Islands, which lie between Indonesia and the coast of Thailand.
Though CNN reported that locals dismissed
the idea a Boeing 777 could land on an airstrip there undetected, the
archipelago consists of hundreds of remote islands with some long stretches of
sand.
Former BA pilot Steve Buzdygan said it
would be difficult – but not impossible – to bring a 777 down on a long
deserted beach.
Landed at a
US military base
One of the more outlandish conspiracy
theories that has gained some traction online is the idea that MH370 could have
been “captured” and flown to a military base on the UK-owned tropical atoll of
Diego Garcia, in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
Such is the strength of belief in this
theory that the US government has been forced to issue a denial. A spokesperson
for the US embassy in Malaysia told the local Star newspaper that there was “no
indication that MH370 flew anywhere near the Maldives or Diego Garcia”. “MH370
did not land in Diego Garcia,” he added.
Headed for a
remote airport in Langkawi, Malaysia
One theory, put forward by another aviation blogger
named Chris Goodfellow, has it that the sudden left turn came after
major catastrophe knocked out a range of the plane’s electronics, from
transponders to communications equipment.
In this scenario and in the middle of the
night, Goodfellow argued, the pilot would redirect towards the nearest safe
airport.
“This pilot did all the right things,” he
said. “Actually he was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi, a 13,000ft
(4,000m) strip with an approach over water at night with no obstacles. He did
not turn back to Kuala Lumpur because he knew he had 8,000ft ridges to cross.
He knew the terrain was friendlier towards Langkawi and also a shorter
distance.”
This theory assumes that the plane was in
fact controlled manually once it disappeared – and that it did not make it to
Langkawi.
A fire
throughout the plane
Many theories accept that the Inmarsat
satellite analysis is accurate – that the plane headed south into the Indian
Ocean and flew on for hours before a final, partial “handshake” in a remote
location thousands of miles off the west coast of Australia.
One suggestion is that a fire broke out,
not just in the cockpit but throughout the interior of the plane. The
implication is that this resulted in the attempt to turn back, after which the
fire killed those on board.
This theory would then have it that the
fire went out before damaging the exterior of the plane, which flew on
autopilot until its fuel ran out.
Yet such a fire would be expected to spread
with at least some warning – and that surely would have given the pilots time
to issue a mayday distress signal.
An explosion
in the cockpit
The theory of a sudden explosion within the
cockpit before the turn left could explain why there was no attempt to signal
for help.
Since 9/11 cockpits doors have been fortified
to become extremely difficult to bypass, and such a sudden incident could
perhaps have incapacitated both pilots while keeping out the rest of the crew.
A struggle at
altitude
Though Malaysian officials believe that the
plane was deliberately diverted, and that its communications systems were
turned off one after the other, a detailed background check into all 227
passengers has cleared all of suspicion.
If, however, we do accept that the plane
was the subject of a passenger hijacking, it remains to be explained why the
hijackers did not try to do more than fly the plane into the middle of the
southern Indian Ocean.
Angus Houston is leading the search for
missing Malaysian aircraft One theory suggests that there was some kind of
struggle for control of the plane that ultimately ended with mutual
destruction.
Further analysis of data by Malaysian
officials suggests that the plane was flown erratically once it left civilian
radar, climbing to 45,000ft before dropping very low. Buzdygan told the BBC he
would resort to this sort of flying if faced with would-be hijackers. “I’d try
to disorientate and confuse the hijackers by throwing them around,” he said.
A botched
hijack attempt
The climb to 45,000ft could also have been
carried out by the hijackers once they had taken control – in a bid to kill the
passengers on board.
At such an altitude it could be possible to
depressurise the cabin, causing oxygen supplies to be deployed. These run out
after 12-15 minutes and, if those flying the plane had access to another oxygen
supply, could have been an attempt to prevent anyone intervening.
Under this theory the suggestion is clearly
that the attempt failed, killing the hijackers as well.
Pilot suicide
As part of the ongoing criminal
investigation in Malaysia, police are looking into the state of mind and
possible motives of the captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah and co-pilot Fariq Abdul
Hamid.
The Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar
has said that “all possibilities” will be looked into, and there have been
reports that Shah was going through a difficult marriage break-up.
Hugh Dunleavy, the commercial director of
Malaysia Airlines, described Shah as a seasoned pilot with an excellent record.
“There have been absolutely no implications
that we are aware of that there was anything untoward in either his behaviour
or attitude,” he told Reuters. “We have no reason to believe that there was
anything, any actions, internally by the crew that caused the disappearance of
this aircraft.”
Sabotage –
for a life insurance scam or corporate attack
One of the other strands of the criminal
investigation regards whether the plane was subject to some form of sabotage –
either as part of a life insurance scam or over industrial espionage.
Bakar said that when passengers and crew
were being investigated, police were looking for “Maybe somebody on the flight
has bought a huge sum of insurance, who wants family to gain from it or
somebody who has owed somebody so much money, you know, we are looking at all
possibilities.”
A CIA cover-up
In a blog entry posted on 18 May entitled
‘Boeing Technology – What goes up must come down’, Dr Mahathir Mohamad makes
ten claims including that the plane was taken over remotely by officials
working for Boeing and the CIA.
Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir
Mohamad (L) shakes hands with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan (R) before their
meeting in Annan's office at the UN in New York 25 September, 2003. “The plane
is somewhere, maybe without MAS markings,” reads Dr Mohamad’s post on chedet.
“Someone is hiding something. It is not
fair that MAS and Malaysia should take the blame,” 88-year-old Dr Mahathir, who
was Malaysia's prime minister between 1981 and 2003, alleges.
“Airplanes don’t just disappear,” he said,
concluding: “For some reason the media will not print anything that involves
Boeing or the CIA. I hope my readers will read this.”
Boeing have denied Dr Mohamed’s theory.
Peter’s
Piece
There’s some pretty wild speculation above, but the
theorists (conspiracy and otherwise) will try to justify their claims with,
“Airliners don’t just vanish without trace.”
Wrong!
So what really is the most likely scenario, if one puts
aside some of the illogical and fanatical theories above?
Commercial aviation is a very safe business these days,
but not perfect. Although it is now looking less likely, if the Flight Data
Recorder is recovered, my belief is that it will indicate another accident.
But now that the conspiracy, cover-up and terrorist
proponents are in full flight, they will never be silenced, regardless of
conclusive evidence to disprove their version of events. In the end, they will
only believe what they want to believe.
People who genuinely want the truth should let the
authorities do their work without the pressure and hype and accusations that we
have been witnessing. That could be detrimental to the final outcome. Air
accident investigators are very thorough and dedicated people and they should
be allowed to continue their investigations without the distraction of
sideshows and hysteria.
