Location of Crashed Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 Pinpointed, New Search Will Be Quick, Avionics Expert Says

A ground-breaking study released this week shows the most detailed projected flight path yet of missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 and pinpoints the aircraft’s final position to a tiny remote patch of the Southern Indian Ocean.

If the data is used to direct a fresh search for the wreckage, experts predict we could just be months from finally solving aviation’s greatest mystery.

The authors of the study used a scientifically proven technique which they honed and improved over three years. They now hope their findings will spur the Malaysian authorities to authorize a fresh search of the seabed in the area they have identified.

The recently released study obtained by Knewz.com has been sent to the Malaysian Minister of Transport, the Malaysian Accident Investigation Bureau and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), all stakeholders in the original search for the missing aircraft and its 239 passengers and crew.

Significantly, the new data has also been presented to private search and salvage company Ocean Infinity, which conducted a 120sq. km. search in 2018 on a no-find no-fee agreement with the Malaysian government, which owned Malaysian Airlines at the time of the crash. This followed an earlier search co-ordinated by the ATSB which was suspended in January 2017.

Knewz.com reported that Ocean Infinity is considering using the new study as a basis for approaching the Malaysian government and negotiating parameters to conduct a new search. The authorities have previously confirmed they would sanction one if new credible evidence comes to light.

The study concludes: “The results presented in this paper represent credible new evidence in the search for MH370.”

MH370 departed Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 12.41am local time on March 8, 2014, heading towards Beijing Capital International Airport where it was due to arrive at 6:30 a.m. local time after five hours and 34 minutes in the air.

As it left Malaysian airspace and headed towards Vietnam, the captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, told local air traffic control: “Good night, Malaysian Three Seven Zero.” Sixty six seconds later the plane’s transponder seemingly switched off and MH370 went "dark." Civilian and radar data show that it tracked back over the Malaysian Peninsula and out into the Malacca Strait where radars lost it.

The authors of the new study are physicist and avionics expert Richard Godfrey, Dr. Hannes Coetzee and Professor Simon Maskell. They used an archive of records of radio waves transmitted by ham operators at the time to identify and track MH370 where there was no radar coverage and only intermittent satellite data transfers, or pings.

Scientists have found that the movement of aircraft through these radio waves is visible in the data recorded by what is known as the Weak Signal Propagation Reporter Network, or WSPRnet, better known as "whispernet." The idea of using amateur radio signals as a passive radar system to detect and track aircraft was first proposed in a NATO paper written by the Finnish Air Defence Academy in 2016.

Using whispernet data, Godfrey and his co-authors were able to ascertain that the plane banked south into the Indian Ocean and flew for seven hours 35 minutes before it ran out of fuel and then glided for 11 minutes before subsequently crashing.

They have been able to verify 67 positions along the flightpath. The results of the study correspond with analysis of the flight by Boeing, and also with satellite tracking data from company Inmarsat. Its satellites made routine hourly datalinks, known as "handshakes" or "pings" with the flight. The study also corresponds with analysis by the University of Western Australia of the drift patterns of floating debris that has been recovered from around the Indian Ocean.

The new study updates and improves an earlier flight path report created by the same team using WSPRnet which was published in December 2021.

In an exclusive interview, Godfrey spoke to Knewz.com about the significance of the enhanced study data.

“It represents the most accurate and detailed record of the path the plane took and hence the most accurate estimate of the crash site at the end of the flight path after fuel exhaustion,” he explains.

“Broadly we can identify a probable crash site area of ocean 70 nautical miles by 42 nautical miles within which there are hotspots where the likelihood that the aircraft will be increases."

“Ocean Infinity has searched part of this area before on 10th May 2018. The present definition goes out further and I’ve encouraged them to consider the bit they haven’t searched first. I think they will be successful. The high probability area we have defined is 10sq. km. With their new technology Ocean Infinity can cover an area like that in just a couple of weeks. It’s not going to take them a long time to find MH370 when they go out.”

And if Ocean Infinity is unable to come to an agreement with the Malaysian government, which previously was understood to have offered to pay the company $70 million if it found the aircraft, other operators are willing to try, including, according to Godfrey, former Google head of engineering and holder of the world record for the highest freefall parachute drop, Dr Alan Eustace, who is developing autonomous underwater vehicles.

Perhaps most significantly, the flightpath shown by the study strongly indicates that someone was in control of the aircraft up to the moment it met its watery end.

“It shows that the pilot in control really planned carefully,” explains Godfrey. “He was very familiar with aircraft movements in the region and knew how to avoid being seen by radar and other aircraft. He knew how to lose an aircraft. It shows careful planning and a pilot who was knowledgeable of the region.”

There have been many theories as to what happened to MH370. Without wreckage or a black box flight recorder conspiracy and disinformation have filled the factual vacuum.

The consensus view among experts is that Zaharie Ahmad Shah crashed the plane on purpose in an act of mass-murder suicide. The theory is supported by friends who say in the months before the flight he was isolated and lonely. It was also discovered that he had plotted a similar flight path into the middle of the southern Indian Ocean on his home PC flight simulator. He was also familiar with flight paths in that part of the world, having flown regularly from Malaysia to Perth in Australia. There is also understood to be no other way to change a flight path on a Boeing 777 other than by the pilot.

Other scenarios include some kind of malfunction which incapacitated the crew and passengers, a hijack, or an explosion, although the new report and the Inmarsat data tends to negate these.

Two of the more outlandish theories were given airtime recently in the three-part Netflix documentary MH370: The Plane That Disappeared. In one, the plane was hijacked by Russian terrorists who commandeered it remotely from an electronics compartment under the floor of the first-class cabin and flew it to Kazakhstan. Satellite data was then doctored, and fake debris was planted. In the other theory, U.S. military planes jammed MH370’s communication systems then shot it down to prevent sensitive electronics equipment onboard reaching China. Both scenarios are sketchy and supported by flimsy supposition.

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Many of those involved in the search for the aircraft, however, do suggest there are bad actors in the search community intent on covering up the truth or muddying the waters. Blaine Gibson, who has recovered most of the wreckage discovered so far, says he has been the subject of an organized smear and trolling campaign and has received credible death threats. On a recent debris finding trip to Madagascar his hotel room was burgled and only his notebook was taken.

There is a suggestion that it would be better for the Malaysian government if the plane was not found as if the wreckage proves malfunction or pilot error, it would no doubt face a costly class lawsuit.

Godfrey is trying to keep an open mind: “In my view the pilot is still a very strong candidate, but we need to find the aircraft to get the evidence to prove who was in the cockpit at the time of the crash. If the cockpit is intact and there are remains in it that then opens the way for DNA testing and will allow investigators to see if there was potentially a hijacker.”

Another puzzle is why the passengers do not appear to have intervened in any way. Frequent fliers on board would no doubt have noticed that the flightpath was taking them over ocean, rather than land. Even though it was dark, the flight path to Beijing would have crossed many illuminated towns and cities. It might be expected that some passengers, on realizing something was wrong, would have tried to contact the ground with mobile phones, yet there was only one phone picked up from the plane, that of the co-pilot.

The WSPRnet report shows that the plane made several turns on its path to oblivion, which suggests someone was in control, thereby negating the theory that there was some kind catastrophic loss of oxygen which incapacitated everyone on board but left the plane in the air.

Godfrey reveals: “I’m sure if the passengers were alive some of them who were frequent passengers would have been aware of the motion and location of the plane over land or sea. If you’ve traveled that route, you would have had some awareness of what was going on. The big question for me is whether the passengers were still alive following the diversion down into the Indian Ocean. Since 9-11 it is possible to lock the cockpit door but why was only one mobile phone picked up?"

“It is possible to switch off the oxygen supply to the cabin from the cockpit. The pilot has a separate oxygen mask and a separate oxygen supply which would last hours. The passenger oxygen supply only lasts 20 mins. It is possible that within 20 mins you can incapacitate all the passengers and crew.”

The implications are chilling.

Meanwhile the mystery of what happened has direct implications for anyone who takes a flight. Airlines learn by mistakes and safety improves after every accident or event.

“10 million of us get on a plane every day and we want to know we will get where we are going,” says Godfrey. “The aviation industry has a good safety track record, but it will only keep that if it can resolve every accident and incident."

“My hope is that Ocean Infinity will make a concrete proposal to the Malaysian Government which will accept, and a plan will then be firmed up to go back out and search again. I am convinced it will only take one more search and we will find MH370. We could only be months away,” he concludes.

KNEWZ SPECIAL REPORT — Finding Malaysian Airlines Flight 370:

Part 1: One Man's Multi-Year Mission to Solve the Plane That Disappeared

Part 2: New Evidence Could Finally Solve the Biggest Mystery in Aviation History