Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur at 12:41 am on a dark, warm night on the 08th March 2014, enroute for Beijing, China. It was expected to be an uneventful night flight at the hands of Captain Zaharie, a very experienced and capable pilot who had been working with Malaysia Airlines for 33 years.
Suddenly, at 1:21 am, the plane’s transponder is switched off almost at the same time as MH370 prepares to fly into Vietnamese airspace over the South China Sea (the transponder is used to communicate with Air Traffic Control). The transponder can only be turned off manually. To turn it off, a pilot would choose the “off” setting on a particular knob. If the primary transponder is turned off, then the secondary transponder will automatically fail to be activated. So why would Captain Zaharie turn the transponder off at this time? There are a couple of explanations - Air Traffic might ask a pilot to turn it off if the plane is on approach and near other aircraft. Or if the transponder is emitting incorrect information, the pilot may want to disconnect it. The first reason can be ruled out straightaway as MH370 was nowhere near its destination. So, was the transponder malfunctioning? Or was it something else entirely?
At 1:30 am, the aircraft embarks on its infamously bizarre flight path. Malaysian military and civilian radar start to track what they believe to be MH370 as it sharply turns back southwest towards Malaysia and northwest up the Strait of Malacca. Radar contact is lost at 2:22 am over the Andaman Sea, 370km northwest of Penang.
Almost half an hour later, at 2:40 am, Subang Air Traffic Control in Malaysia finally reports that it has lost contact with the flight.
It’s now 6:30 am and the flight doesn’t arrive in Beijing as scheduled. Nobody knows where it is.
Eventually, at 11:00 am, officials gather the various friends and family members of the passengers to inform them of the plane’s status.
The above timeline is what the world knows about MH370 and its fateful flight. But what really happened that night? Did it crash into the South China Sea not even an hour into the flight? Did Captain Zaharie take his passengers and crew on a crazy death journey to some remote point on the Southern Indian Ocean? Was the aircraft hijacked? Or did something else occur – something that cannot be explained by science and logic?
The Delayed Reaction
Even though it was apparent that, shortly after takeoff, the aircraft had promptly vanished from radar screens, it wasn’t until 03:00 am that a code red situation was finally announced by Malaysia Airlines. That was 1 hour and 41 minutes after last contact. There is no reasonable explanation for this significant delay.
There was a definite lack of communication between Malaysia Airlines/Kuala Lumpur and Ho Chi Minh controllers. After Zaharie said goodnight to KL controllers at 01:19 am, HCM controllers contacted KL controllers at 01:39 am. The correct procedural waiting time is no more than 5 minutes after handover. They waited 10 minutes before alerting KL about the lack of communication with MH370. As if that wasn’t enough, Malaysia Airlines operations officers were optimistic that they could trace the missing flight, because, despite all communications being down, they maintained that MH370 was visible on Flight Explorer, advancing as normal on its planned flight path. At 02:20 am, Ho Chi Minh disagreed. They stated that, as far as they were concerned, MH370 had vanished. The subsequent reply from Kuala Lumpur shows a definite blasé and reckless attitude :-
“Disappeared, okay”
and
“Nah, I am not sure, but the company already sent a signal to the aircraft to contact the relevant air traffic control unit”.
The chaos and confusion that ensued was triggered by this validation – that MH370 was still flying and that they had been asked to contact the nearest air traffic. But an important and indelible fact sticks out ... there had been no reply …
And the question is – were Malaysia Airlines truly successful in tracking MH370, enough to satisfy them that nothing was wrong? Or were they lying? The excerpt below from Ean Higgins’ book “The Hunt for MH370” appears to further reinforce the idea that Malaysia Airlines were floundering.
“At 2:36am, when the aircraft had been out of contact for an hour and 15 minutes, Malaysia Airlines operations said MH370 was ‘somewhere in Vietnam’ and gave coordinates based on Flight Explorer to Kuala Lumpur controllers, who in turn relayed them to Ho Chi Minh.”
Curiously, at around the same time, Malaysia Airlines’ crisis director, who had been alerted to the situation with the aircraft, checked his flight systems and he saw no sign of MH370 at all! How could it be that Malaysia Airlines ops officers were efficiently following MH370, and yet the crisis director’s tracking efforts resulted in a vanished aircraft? Wouldn’t both the crisis director and the ops officers be using the same flight tracking program? So why the disparity?
At 05:40 am, far too many hours after the aircraft’s first anomaly, chief of Civil Aviation department, Azharuddin, had the audacity to call out Ho Chi Minh controllers as the culprits for the massive four-hour delay. In actual fact, it was the Malaysia Airlines controllers who had dismissed the idea that there was something wrong with MH370 because they had been “confidently tracking” the flight on its planned route all along!
After MH370 failed to make an appearance at Beijing at its allotted time, a press conference was arranged by Malaysia Airlines. And they lied through their teeth. The chief executive, Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, claimed that 02:40 am was the time that contact had been lost with the aircraft. In reality, it was 01:39 am when Ho Chi Minh controllers talked to Kuala Lumpur because MH370 had failed to respond. THAT should have officially been recorded as the first alert, surely!
As the aircraft passed waypoint IGARI (South China Sea), it suddenly disappeared from controllers’ screens, indicating that the secondary radar transponder must have been deactivated. Therefore, armed with this information no more than ten minutes later, there’s no doubt that Malaysia Airlines ought to have taken action much sooner.
When the aircraft went off radar, all the communications systems shut down simultaneously. One explanation would be a massive catastrophe on board, like an explosion or a huge fire. The only other possible explanation is if the whole thing is switched off … deliberately.
Ean Higgins' Theories
Ean Higgins, a reporter and foreign correspondent with a successful career that spanned nearly four decades, became highly involved in the disappearance of MH370, ruffling a lot of important feathers along the way in his investigation. The ATSB (Australian Transport Safety Bureau) and the JACC (Joint Agency Coordination Centre) attempted to stop him from writing the story on the disappearance of MH370 for The Australian. Unperturbed by all the pressure, he then went on to write the very popular book “The Hunt for MH370”, where he openly expressed his views and theories on the missing aircraft. He was ready to release a second book on the subject when he suddenly went missing himself in 2020. Information about this on the internet is scarce and very sketchy, and police refuse to release any details.
His book “The Hunt for MH370” isn’t readily available either. Only some used paperbacks are on sale and they can cost you anything between £200 to £700! What was due to be revealed in his second book that might have led to his disappearance? Or was he, perhaps, under threat and decided to vanish of his own accord? Below, Ean Higgins proposes three possible scenarios for that fateful night on board MH370.
(a) Rogue Pilot
This theory makes Captain Zaharie the absolute villain. He suggests the pilot would have prepared his crew bag with a variety of warm clothing. He would wait till his co-pilot was out of the cockpit and then he would lock the door. After turning off all systems and cabin pressure, he would put on all his winter clothing and his oxygen mask. Within 12 minutes, everyone else would have passed out, even with oxygen masks, from Hypoxia. He would then turn systems and cabin pressure back on and, with unresponsive or dead passengers and crew, would accomplish his grisly plan and fly them all to oblivion in the Southern Indian Ocean.
Here, Captain Zaharie is once more the scoundrel of the story. He propounds that the pilot would take a parachute on board in his crew bag, follow the same procedure as in the Rogue Pilot theory, but instead jump out at an agreed point, where his mistress would be waiting for him in a boat. The plane would have been set on autopilot for the same remote destination, and Captain Zaharie and his mistress would be living happily ever after under new identities.
(c) Onboard Fire
And here he explains how an onboard fire may have started and got out of control. The windscreen shattering would have put the fire out but the controls would have already been damaged. Although the Captain, with the help of a flight attendant, would have tried to take control of the flight and veered it away from built-up areas (it would explain the erratic new flight path), he would have realised that the game was up. He would have set the autopilot to a faraway destination in the Southern Indian Ocean, in the middle of nowhere, so that no one else would be harmed.
In the end, the ATSB opted for the “Ghost Flight” theory, in which no one on board would be left alive whilst the plane proceeded on its set route to the Southern Indian Ocean, where it would eventually run out of fuel and plunge into the ocean. In his book, Ean Higgins debates the possibility that the ATSB may have settled for this theory to avoid publicly embarrassing the Malaysian government with the proposal that a trusted Malaysian pilot could mass murder 238 innocent people.
How ludicrous is it to even imagine that the honour of the Malaysian nation and its national airline was infinitely more important than recovering the lost aircraft, bringing closure to all those families and actually finding out the REAL truth!
However, there is a problem with the Ghost Flight theory. It is assumed that the aircraft would have continued till it ran out of fuel. It would then have bombed into the ocean, breaking up into a million pieces. The result would have never have been an intact submersion right to the bottom of the sea. Surely this would have left behind a fair amount of visible debris!
The Futile Search and False Crash Site
Many countries participated in the initial search in the last point of contact at IGARI. Australia, China, Vietnam, The Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore and the USA deployed various types of aircraft and warships. The search area covered a 50 nautical mile radius around IGARI but, according to reports, only several false alarms were discovered, like an oil slick that wasn’t aviation fuel and a piece of white canvas that resembled a Boeing 777’s tail, among others. It appears that nothing linked to MH370 was found at this spot. The search extended to the Strait of Malacca and the Andaman Sea, to no avail.
At first, the search was spread over quite an extensive area – 600,000 square kilometres of ocean at a distance of 3,000 kilometres southwest of Perth. Some prominent nations joined the search – China, Malaysia, USA, Japan, Korea and New Zealand. Absolutely nothing turned up. Three weeks down the line, investigators tried narrowing the search by using calculations based on a probable route flown by MH370 and on the speed of the aircraft, etc. Added to this, they took into consideration how the debris would have drifted depending on the winds and ocean currents, using computer models with wind and sea current algorithms. However, the good idea turned into something of a nightmare because, the longer the search lasted, the larger the possible target area.
As time went on and there was still no sign of the missing aircraft, various experts and experienced pilots came up with coordinates of where they believed the aircraft had gone down. The original search area, which was established as per the “ghost flight” theory (where the crew and passengers are unresponsive), differs notably from the coordinates proposed by expert pilots Hardy and Bailey.
After extensive calculations, they formed their opinion on the “controlled ditching” theory, where the pilot is conscious and glides the plane till it runs out of fuel. However, this procedure would take the aircraft at least 100 nautical miles outside of the designated search area. If Hardy and Bailey are right, this would render the search futile and a complete waste of money, to the tune of $200 million.
Privately-owned Ocean infinity decided to have a go themselves at finding MH370. In January 2018, they embarked on their first search, based on the 25,000 kilometres north of the original search area. Despite using state of the art equipment, far superior to what the ATSB search employed, nothing was found in the immediate vicinity. The search was then moved a bit further south. Ocean Infinity threw everything it had at this search. Still nothing turned up. Ocean Infinity stopped looking and went home, defeated, in June 2018.
Of course they didn’t find it – I don’t believe it’s anywhere there at all ...
In my opinion, the “ghost flight” and “controlled ditching” in the Southern Indian Ocean theories have constantly been the proverbial red herring in the story of MH370. As it turns out, the point at which the aircraft turned south was always unknown! For all intents and purposes, the aircraft may never have actually turned south at all!
In any case, the “ghost flight” ATSB theory has conclusively been dashed by expert pilots. Captain Byron Bailey quotes “To suggest the pilots could have been overcome by decompression and hypoxia was absurd. If the decompression was slow, alarms would have gone off and they would have reacted; if rapid, they would have immediately initiated emergency action according to protocol.”
Many expert pilots also claim that the lack of debris more than proves that it was clearly not a “ghost flight” because, if the aircraft had plunged into a Death Dive, there would certainly have been a fair amount of debris. So when you sift all the evidence, what’s left is an irrefutable pilot hijack, plain and simple. Where it actually ended up is another matter entirely …
The Locator Beacons and Undersea search
Because the search had been coordinated a bit late, it was decided to try to find the aircraft through its Locator Beacons, which are attached to the black boxes. They activate when immersed in fresh or salt water, and ‘ping’ at the rate of one pulse per second. Quite a number of vessels joined the acoustic search from countries like China, USA and UK, who even included their pièce de résistance – the nuclear submarine HMS Tireless, specialised in detecting any sounds coming from the seabed. Australia threw in their Defence Force Sonar Buoys, manufactured primarily for anti-submarine warfare, but easily altered to be able to detect the underwater ‘pings’.
Suddenly, in early April, China declared that their vessel Haixun 01 had located MH370. They claimed to have picked up the pings from the aircraft’s black boxes, while conducting a search along the southern extreme of the Seventh Arc area. Australia eventually budged and agreed to send the British vessel Echo to assist the Chinese, but they stated that their ship Ocean Shield would stay behind to follow up on acoustic noises in her present position … What noises? This was new! Nothing had been mentioned. Their response was that they had only just detected the noises in the last 90 minutes. Really?
Then they made an announcement the following day, on the 07th April. Their vessel Ocean Shield had discovered two signals, believed to come from aircraft black boxes. The signals, analysed by the Australian Joint Acoustic Analysis Centre, were deemed very steady and clear, and consistent with the pulsar interval emitted by aircraft. In other words, they considered these signals to have emanated from a flight data recorder.
Unfortunately, even though Bluefin-21 covered 100% of the target search area, it found absolutely nothing manmade. Bluefin-21 finally stopped searching on the 28th May.
And, as if that wasn’t disheartening enough, when the data from the pings was re-analysed, it emerged that the pings weren’t from a flight data recorder after all. Basically, it appears that the ship was pinging itself.
The Cargo and the South China Sea wreckage
The cargo on board MH370 supposedly contained simple things like lithium batteries, walkie-talkie accessories and chargers. 2.5 tons. However, it seems the cargo was delivered to the aircraft under escort and was never scanned. The report states that “there were no available x-ray machines”. Incredible.
Cyndi Hendry, a volunteer for a satellite imagery company called Tomnod (no longer operating), fervently claims that she has located the wreckage of the missing flight. In the South China sea, more or less over IGARI waypoint. This imaging of debris on the seabed (with a superimposed schematic of the Boeing 777) was consistently disregarded by Malaysia airlines and all other official bodies.
Conspiracies and Mysterious Circumstances
One of the most baffling incidents surrounding the disappearance of MH370 was that of MH17. Within four months, Malaysia Airlines suffered two major air incidents. On the 17th July 2014, MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine as it flew from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew. The whole world stood in shock. How could it be a coincidence? Is there a connection?
Maybe there isn’t a connection; but there is still something very fishy about Malaysia Airlines’ second tragedy. It was eventually confirmed that the plane had been shot down by Russian-controlled forces, yet Russia insisted that they were not responsible. And it might have been true. What did they have to gain by perpetrating this atrocity? On the other hand, it would do nicely as a perfect set-up.
There was a whole bunch of scientists and researchers on that flight. They were on their way to Melbourne for the 2014 International Aids Conference. Among the passengers were top AIDS researcher Joep Lange and his partner, Jacqueline van Tongeren, also an expert in this field, and others who had done pivotal work in HIV/AIDS prevention. Lange was the leading architect of a revolutionary treatment for HIV patients – combination retroviral therapy, which considerably helped a multitude of those affected, making the virus lean more towards chronic illness rather than death.
So, perhaps it’s simply a vast coincidence; but what if Lange and his team had had another breakthrough, something that would be revealed at the conference, something that would, maybe, result in a complete cure? Something that would put a lot of “important” people out of pocket … I know it sounds rather far-fetched, but it possibly offers up a better explanation for this seemingly “random” shoot down.
Another convenience? As it happens, commercial aircraft ID plates are screwed on or adhered and are tightly secured, enough to withstand any kind of pressure, be it fire, extreme cold, submersion, etc. The only time when one of these plates is removed is when an aircraft is disassembled.
Presumably, they sent a total of 12 different number sequences to be analysed and, in the end, only ONE was a match. And that was enough to convince them? Despite such an unlikely result (one out of twelve), Malaysia still went ahead at a press conference and confirmed that the flaperon was indeed part of MH370.
After all, if the “wrong” engine was found among the rubble of the devastated Twin Towers, is it so surprising that the MH370 flaperon may also have been planted?
Then riding on the tailcoats of the flaperon, came the “revelations” made to lawyer-turned-treasure hunter Blaine Gibson. This guy found practically all the debris there was to find. It appears he was told to go to Mozambique, Mauritius, Tanzania and other surrounding areas of the south-east coast of Africa, as he was certain to locate debris from MH370. And he did. He found the rear edge of the left outboard flap and the right flap. The parts were sent to Canberra for analysis and, once again, it was confirmed that they originated from MH370. And he continued to be told where he could find debris. And he continued to find it. All in all, Blaine Gibson is reputed to have retrieved no less than 33 pieces from the missing aircraft! I believe Blaine Gibson was probably telling the truth – that he believed he had this inside informant passing him tips.
However, so much debris suddenly popping up all over the place, straight after Ghyslain Wattrelos was approached by the Intelligence agent, and the subsequent discovery of the flaperon, somehow looks staged. If it’s true that the aircraft was hijacked, then I reckon they must have taken advantage of Blaine Gibson’s thirst for the quest. Debris was planted and the adventurer gets informed. Blaine gets the fulfilment he seeks and the hijackers shut up all the speculators and conspirators. In actual fact, other reporters, journalists and victims’ relatives were unconvinced, saying it was just too opportune. Absolutely!
According to the authorities, for about a month before the disappearance of MH370, Captain Zaharie had been using a flight simulator at home, flying a route that ended with a crash into the Southern Indian Ocean, at the spot where it is believed that MH370 actually went down. Label it as a conspiracy or a cover up, but, considering that the FBI had, apparently, retrieved Zaharie’s computer and flight simulator at the very beginning of the investigation, why did they wait two long years before releasing the information and pointing the finger at the pilot? It doesn’t make sense that they held onto this information, which could have helped the investigation along in its early stages. Why hide it? Ghyslain Wattrelos insists the Americans are involved in the disappearance. I suspect that Captain Zaharie never even flew that route on his home flight simulator. This orchestration was just a way of deflecting attention away from the actual truth.
The Inmarsat Data
INMARSAT is a British company that uses satellites to communicate with aircraft all over the planet. Planes have a transmitter on board which sends electronic ‘pings’, called ‘handshakes’, to a satellite on a regular basis, which, in turn, relays these to a ground station requesting the data. And in the case of MH370, INMARSAT confirmed that the ‘pings’ were emanating from somewhere along the Seventh Arc. But the Seventh Arc covers a huge area. Their data showed a curvature stretching all the way from Kazakhstan by the Caspian Sea to the Southern Indian Ocean. And INMARSAT hadn’t been able to confirm which way the plane had turned – whether it was north towards central Asia or south in the direction of Antarctica.
Naturally, the families went ballistic. They refused to accept the conclusion and began shouting out that Malaysia was lying and attempting a cover-up. Before too long, there was a riot in Beijing. The families of the victims went on a protest march right up to the Malaysian embassy amidst cries of “Tell us the Truth!”. So it appears that the full story wasn’t being told. And Malaysia closed ranks and refused to release raw data from their military radars. What were they hiding?
Mike Exner, an aviation expert intent on finding the truth about MH370 and its location, seemed to come up against a brick wall. On an interview with CNN, he revealed that INMARSAT had not released enough information, therefore stunting anybody that might want to analyse and confirm INMARSAT’s results. In my opinion, if their conclusions couldn’t be made entirely public, it spells concealment ...
Eventually, Malaysia finally released the data provided by INMARSAT. However, one of the paragraphs stated that when all operating systems on the aircraft were turned off, so was the ability to communicate via satellite. Oh? So, if nothing was turned back on at any point, how reliable is this data from INMARSAT? Apparently, the satellite communication can only be broken from the electronics bay in the hold – which is, presumably, easily accessible on a Boeing 777 through an unlocked hatch near the cockpit at the front of the first class cabin. Did someone on board gain entry into this section to disconnect the satellite communication?
Florence de Changy, an award-winning foreign correspondent for Le Monde, raised another valid point (Netflix documentary “MH370 : The Plane that Disappeared”). She stated that the only ‘proof’ that we have that MH370 ended up in the Southern Indian Ocean is the data from INMARSAT - the handshakes with the satellite.
It doesn’t surprise me. It points the finger at a U.S. hijack and, inevitably, to possible fabricated data. Florence de Changy also believes that the data from INMARSAT was deliberately flawed – in order to cover up what truly happened to MH370.
The Phone Calls
Once it was established that MH370 hadn’t landed and that no one knew its whereabouts, the situation naturally became desperate. Malaysia airlines held a press conference to present relatives with a status update, but they really didn’t know how to fix this major problem. Some of the anguished relatives even tried calling their loved ones on their mobiles. It was a hopelessly frantic attempt, considering that, at this juncture, it had been over 10 hours since the missing flight had left Kuala Lumpur and, logically, would have run out of fuel a few hours before.
Strangely though, the calls didn’t go straight to voicemail, as would be expected considering the scenario, but continued to ring! Obviously, the aircraft wasn’t submerged deep in the ocean! So, where was it then? Suddenly, the daughter of one of the passengers shouted out that there was an incoming call on her mobile – and it was from her father on board MH370! She hesitated, unsure of what to do, afraid, perhaps, of what she would hear. When she finally pressed the answer button, it stopped.
Other relatives had also connected with their loved ones’ mobiles, so, in view of this, the families asked the Malaysian government to trace the calls. Straightforward and simple in this day and age, one would think. Nevertheless, the Malaysian government refused on the grounds that they didn’t have the technology! Excuse me? This is a prize-winning lame excuse, if I ever heard one. The relatives were, naturally, shocked – surely this was the perfect chance to pinpoint the exact location of the aircraft and its passengers?
All through the long and painful subsequent search for MH370, the firm opinion of the leading authorities was that the aircraft had crashed into a remote point in the Southern Indian Ocean, that it had ran out of fuel and dived into the ocean. Zaharie had topped up with enough fuel to last him seven and a half hours. So, if this theory is correct, passengers would certainly not be conscious, alive or even above water when the mobile phone situation took place in Beijing at around 11:00 am.
So, essentially, this means that at the time (approx 11:00 am) when the relatives were, supposedly, able to contact their loved ones’ phones, it’s absolutely impossible that the aircraft would have still been flying! It’s simple – if it had already crashed into the ocean, be it the South China Sea or the Southern Indian Ocean, the mobiles wouldn’t ring, they would go straight to voicemail. And a passenger would certainly not try to contact his daughter! So the only plausible conclusion is that the aircraft had landed somewhere ...
The Hijack Theory
When it became apparent that the flight had actually travelled further than the perimeter of Malaysia, no one was able to come up with any logical answers. And then the waters were muddied even further by INMARSAT’s report; because now MH370 could have flown north as far as Kazakhstan or south towards Antarctica. It couldn’t be confirmed either way for sure. Naturally, this pushed the door wide open for an assortment of conspiracies, which started popping up all over the place like bluebells in Springtime.
One of those conspiracies was that the aircraft had been hijacked by Russians and taken to Kazakhstan, location of the final ping at the northern end of the Seventh Arc. It probably makes sense when you consider that the Russians, allegedly, shot down MH17 over Ukraine just four short months later. The jigsaw pieces do seem to fit.
Still, there are others who believe that the Americans are responsible. Ultimately, it was the FBI who knew from the beginning about the pilot’s flight simulator, but kept it quiet for two whole years. Then there is the conveniently situated US Naval base near Maldives called Diego Garcia. And, according to Ghyslain Wattrelos’ Intelligence contact, US AWACS aircraft had been following MH370. AWACS planes are sophisticated and efficient, and are used to detect planes, ships and even missiles. They are also equipped with very advanced radar.
Relatives, in turn, were blaming the Malaysian, government, its military and the airline exclusively for the tragedy. I disagree. I believe that Malaysia was just a small cog in a big conspiracy wheel. People were probably paid off to keep their mouths shut and their eyes closed. Who knows? Maybe Malaysia was reluctant to jeopardise good relations between them and the USA.
Oceanographer Professor Chari Pattiaratchi believes that the aircraft did indeed crash into the ocean, and he points to one specific location – Broken Ridge, an oceanic plateau in the Southern Indian ocean, 1,977 km from Perth. Broken Ridge is 4 to 5 km deep with a seabed full of high mountains, volcanoes and ravines going down approx 1,000 metres. It would be nigh on impossible to recover an aircraft from this location. It would also be highly difficult to disprove the theory that MH370 sits there because of the depth and challenging undersea terrain; which would, incidentally, work very well for the hijackers …
The following report correlates quite nicely with the American involvement theory. A man local to the the small Maldives island of Kuda Huvadhoo, claimed he saw a large aircraft flying low at about 06:00 am on the 08th March. He also said that the aircraft sported blue and red lines below the windows (just like Malaysia airlines). However, his story was debunked right off the bat by the French newspaper Le Monde. They declared that there was a flight that same morning, from Maldivian airlines, that landed on nearby Thimarafushi at 06:30 am.
Le Monde came up with yet another “fact” – that it wasn’t possible that the plane the man saw was MH370 because it was coming in from the northwest … Pardon? At this juncture, the aircraft could have flown in from any direction because no one really knew what transpired after that crazy turn over Malaysia! Coming in from the northwest was by no means inconceivable!
I created the following hypothetical scenario to show how MH370 could have come in from the northwest, and just in time for the chap in Kuda Huvadhoo to see it fly by.
The flight continues over Sri Lanka, which takes about 3.5 hours. It keeps going for another 2,500 km into the Arabian Sea and then turns in a southeast direction towards the Maldives.
There is a 3 hour difference between Malaysia and Maldives.
A Boeing 777 cruising speed at 40,000 feet altitude is approximately 900 km/hr.
So, theoretically, it could have taken 2.5 hours to reach an undetermined point in the Arabian Sea. Then another 1.5 hours from there to the Maldives, hence flying in from the northwest. And if my calculations are correct, this would place MH370 bang over the Maldives at about the time it was spotted from Kuda Huvadhoo island.
Finally, it would be another hour or so to reach Diego Garcia US Naval Base.
8.5 hours approximate total flying time from Malacca Strait to the Maldives. Practically the same amount of time it would have taken Captain Zaharie to dump the Boeing into the Southern Indian ocean.
The pilot must have been part of it, though. Why else did he order all that extra fuel at Kuala Lumpur? The general consensus is that he did so in order to reach that remote “crash” point in the Southern Indian ocean. But I believe that his reason was not that macabre.
Florence de Changy posits her theory that the USAF shot down the aircraft over the South China Sea. She reckons that the USAF were after the mysterious, undocumented cargo that MH370 was carrying, and didn’t want it to fall into the hands of the Chinese. She proposes that US AWACS planes intercepted the doomed flight and ordered Captain Zaharie to land and then, when he refused, the aircraft was shot down rather than allow it to arrive with the precious cargo in China. It seems that this cargo may have consisted of important electronic equipment and that China was aware and ready to receive.
Florence’s theory was certainly possible, no question about it. However, I honestly cannot imagine that Captain Zaharie would refuse to follow the order to land knowing that he was endangering the lives of all his passengers and crew, and his own life, of course. This is where my hijack theory steps in. The aircraft was not shot down. The aircraft was rerouted and landed somewhere else. If I’m right, this can only mean that he was either (a) in on it all along, (b) that he did follow orders to land or (c) that the plane was taken over remotely and flown to its new destination.
As a matter of fact, the aircraft being hijacked remotely isn’t as far fetched as it appears. In an interview with the newspaper The Australian, Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysian leader of opposition, said he believed that MH370 could have been seized remotely using technology that was installed to impede a hijack. He claimed that, in 2006, it was reported that Boeing was given a licence to remotely operate the takeover of a hijacked plane while it is flying. And Boeing is American. Say no more ...
In any case, Florence de Changy may well be spot on with her idea of fighter jets ‘sandwiching’ MH370. If this procedure blocks any satellite and radar signals, wouldn’t the plane be invisible to INMARSAT too? So if this is correct, how on earth could INMARSAT confirm that the plane had veered southeast?
Florence de Changy then brings a very valid argument to the table. The Malaysians said that the flight had done a U-turn as it approached Vietnamese airspace, and had then veered up through the Strait of Malacca and right over a big, bold Australian airbase called Butterworth. She then points out that it would be completely impossible that “a rogue B777 would fly over an airbase without immediately triggering the scrambling of jets, some kind of interception, some kind of alert …” It is quite remarkable that their radars never spotted MH370 as it flew over them after switching direction, on an unchartered flight plan. Were they told to ignore it?
Another extraordinary fact is that, at the same time, there was a massive US military exercise taking place in the South China Sea! So the whole area was awash with both Australian and US military, and MH370 simply flew on undisturbed. Surely SOMEONE would have noticed this enormous aircraft! Which brings me to an inescapable conclusion – military jets had already taken possession of the passenger plane and were either, blocking radar and satellite, or MH370 was being brazenly spirited away, hidden in plain sight in the middle of the military exercise! Could the US government have had intelligence beforehand on the forthcoming cargo aboard MH370 and consequently organised a military exercise in a “convenient” location with the idea of seizing the aircraft?
Or, did they shoot it down, as Florence de Changy claims? Maybe it was by mistake, or maybe it was even by design. And then it would need to be covered up. This would mean that the debris discovered by Cyndi Hendry is legit, and it might also explain why the authorities disregarded her findings.
The Portal Angle
I don’t much subscribe to the idea of alien abduction where MH370 is concerned. However, interdimensional travel is rather an interesting concept and also one of my pet subjects. This theory would explain the fact that there is absolutely no trace of the missing aircraft – anywhere. I don’t, for one minute, believe that the debris found actually belonged to MH370. I bet it was planted to stop further speculations. And, if MH370 really did slip through into another dimension, it will never be found. Like Flight 19 (see my article 'The Bermuda Triangle'). Or it might just suddenly appear out of nowhere and happily land in Beijing years later, like the flight in the series Manifest. Who knows?
So, in the end, on the 17th January 2017, the search for the missing aircraft was abandoned. And on the 30th July 2018, a press conference was given by the Malaysian authorities, announcing the long-awaited release of the Safety Investigation Report on MH370. The report states that the Boeing 777 MH370 was airworthy and that the pilot was calm and had not displayed any behavioural changes. But the best part was when they were forced to admit that “the possibility of intervention by a third party cannot be excluded..”
Even the Malaysian authorities were compelled to declare that a third party was probably involved in the disappearance of MH370. Captain Zaharie’s name was finally cleared, and bang went the theory that the pilot orchestrated the wild mass homicide/suicide journey into the Southern Indian Ocean.
At the end of the day, whether the plane was shot down in the South China Sea or whether it was hijacked and taken God knows where, one thing is certain – it will never be found.
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”
Sherlock Holmes
References
“MH370 : The Flight that Disappeared” (Netflix 2023)
“The Hunt for MH370” by Ean Higgins (2019)
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