The search for the wreckage of the ill-fated Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 in the Indian Ocean will soon reach its final stretch as the two search vessels are back in action after several months of break because of inclement weather conditions.
However, the Australian Transport Safety Board (ATSB) are now entertaining possible theories on how the Boeing 747 plane landed in the Indian Ocean, which was way off course from its flight from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to Beijing in China on March 8, 2014.
Based on the analysis of satellite communications data from the plane, there was already no human intervention during the last five and a half hours of the journey, indicating that Flight MH370 may have made a death dive into the Indian Ocean after it exhausted its fuel, details The Week of UK.
Scenarios for a death dive
The ATSB is looking at the death dive scenario in three different ways. The first one is an unresponsive pilot scenario wherein the pilot and the people onboard may have already been unconscious. So with nobody to man the controls, the plane would have crashed into the sea through the so-called death dive.
The Australian agency is also entertaining the possibility that the pilot has gone rogue as previous investigations may have suggested.
Under the second theory, the pilot hijacked the aircraft after the last good night to Kuala Lumpur air traffic control, flew the plane via a pre-planned route to the southern Indian Ocean and then carried out a controlled ditching in the water.
But the ongoing analysis of a wing flap that washed ashore in the east African country of Tanzania appears to support the theory of a death dive rather than a controlled ditching.
Peter Foley, the head of the ATSB search team, explained to the press that the flap from Flight MH370 was retracted rather than deployed when the plane hit the water, suggesting that there was no controlled landing.
There is also a third theory which combines both the first two theories wherein the pilot hijacked the plane but simply allowed the plane to run out of fuel without intervening, causing a death dive.
Back in action
Meanwhile, one of the two vessels searching for the missing wreckage of Flight MH370, the Dong Hai Jiu 101, is now back in action in the Indian Ocean.
The vessel had several months of break because of uncooperative weather conditions. The ship also returned with some new equipment too according to the ATSB.
The Dong Hai Jiu 101 was back in the search area with a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) on board. The ROV will allow the ship to re-examine the locations that need more thorough analysis, reports the International Business Times.
The other ship, the Fugro Equator, briefly visited the Australian Marine Complex in Henderson to get refitted with an underwater robot that will rejoin the search.
The Hugin 4500 Autonomous Underwater Vehicle was used earlier this year to check the ocean floor for wreckage. The robot and the Fugro Equator were undergoing testing as of October 24.
The ATSB has confirmed last month that the flap section found on the island of Pemba off the coast of the east African country of Tanzania in June belongs to the ill-fated Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370.
The ATSB announcement comes as the official search for the wreckage of the plane in the vast Indian Ocean is set to be suspended in December.
The large flap section is just one of the many debris found over the last couple of months mostly on the eastern shores of Africa.
In its official reports, the ATSB said that upon the flap section’s arrival, several part numbers were immediately located on the debris that confirmed the preliminary identification. The initial findings were consistent with the physical appearance, dimensions, and construction of the part.