Contrary to the perception of some critics that the search team is looking at the wrong place in trying to locate the remains of the ill-fated Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, the Australian government believes that the joint initiative with China and Malaysia is searching on the right place.
According to Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss, in a press conference in Canberra recently, the search team is on the right track based on a recent analysis that confirmed the highest probability of where the wreckage of the missing plane could be located, notes The Guardian.
He also said that three-quarters of the identified hot spot have already been scoured by the search team, hinting that the remaining 25% could finally turn up the wreckage of the Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 which disappeared on March 8, 2014.
It was actually the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) that came out with an analysis that said that the search zone was accurate.
The search zone is actually a 120,000-square-kilometer arc in the southern Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia.
Loss of electric power
Also based on the latest analysis of ATSB, pilots of the Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 have experienced a sudden loss of electric power in the plane, which resulted to multiple parts failing within a short span of time and eventually leading to the likely crash of the aircraft, reports the International Business Times.
The analysis also said that the runaway power outage might have led the plane’s system to shut down.
Before the outage, the pilots of Flight MH370 were able to regularly contact air traffic controllers and the plane could transmit its location.
But after the outage, two automatic reporting systems – the transponder and a separate system which gave out details about the plane’s critical systems – have stopped functioning.
Accordingly, the details about the state of the plane prior to its likely crash were buried in the latest report of ATSB released on December 10.
The latest report of ATSB also discarded previous speculations that the pilots caused the plane’s disappearance because they were actually trying to save it from a crash.
The last contact with Flight MH370 was about 37 minutes after takeoff when the pilot was quoted as having said ‘Good night. Malaysian three seven zero.’
The plane disappeared on March 8 last year while flying from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to Beijing in China laden with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board.
A third search ship
The search team for the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, whose focus is currently on the remote part of the southern Indian Ocean, got a much-needed lift with the arrival of a third Fugro vessel early this month.
It was the Joint Agency Coordination Centre who confirmed the arrival of the third ship and it came just days after Australian authorities said that the focus of the current search for the wreckage of the Flight MH370 will shift to a specific area that was recently identified by a British pilot flying a Boeing 777.
Fugro, the Dutch survey company that was commissioned by the search team, has fielded a third vessel into the nearly two-year-old endeavour.
The Havila Harmony joined the Fugro Discovery and the Fugro Equator in the search. It features a Hugin 4500 Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) that is capable of scouring the most difficult parts of the ocean floor.
The AUV of the Havila Harmony is capable of surveying the most difficult portions of the search that cannot be searched as effectively by the deep tow search systems of the Fugro Discovery and the Fugro Equator. The Hugin 4500 is an Echo Surveyor VII underwater vehicle which has an underwater camera.
Prior to its deployment, the Havila Harmony underwent some calibration tests off Fremantle in Western Australia before joining the search on December 3 with a crew complement of 40.
This is a significant change of tune for Australia’s ATSB which, so far, has led a $100 million failed effort to locate the aircraft. One of the main, but unspoken, reason’s underlying the ATSB’s choice of it’s current SA was their belief that Capt. Shah commandeered the aircraft, killed everyone else on board, and then flew the aircraft at cruise altitude and speed deep into the southern ocean.
An Egypt Air 777 only 2 serial numbers apart from the MH370 aircraft suffered a catastrophic cockpit oxygen fire while parked at the gate. It is a fact that maintenance repressurized 370’s cockpit emergency oxygen system prior to takeoff. The pressure in the system was low possibly indicating a pending failure in the system.
I believe that 370 suffered a flash cockpit oxygen fire moments after reaching cruise altitude. Capt. Shah heroically ordered his copilot (Hamid) to evacuate the cockpit and directed the aircraft in a return to nearest airport before dying in the fire. Hamid survived for some time and tried to make a phone call on his personal cell phone. I believe that he may have been responsible for 370’s turn back to the south. The rudder pedal servo’s are located in the floor of the cockpit and may have survived the burned out cockpit.
This crippled aircraft flew to fuel exhaustion at 10,000 to 12,000 feet and a velocity of between 300kts and 350kts. if ever found it will be located approximately 1,000 km northeast to the ATSB’s current SA.
I would be delighted to eat humble pie if they do find MH370 in their current search area, but that is not going to happen.
ATSB analysis is deeply flawed by discarding or ignoring vital clues. Key amongst these are the floating debris spotted much further south by satellites in March 2014.
ATSB’s own reasoning is obviously wrong. In their report of 26 June 2014 it was concluded that MH370’s flight south most closely resembled hypoxic flight. Now their new report of 3 December 2015 announces massive electrical failure was the only logical explanation for loss of ACARS contact at 18:04 UTC.
If MH370 suffered massive electrical failure at the very beginning and hypoxic flight at the end, then ipso facto the intricate turns through the Straits of Malacca were impossible.
When warren Truss & ATSB finally eat some humble pie and stop banging the drum like a team of cheerleaders, maybe we can get on with a real 7 objective investigation?