Some 10 years after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared over the Indian Ocean, a new search is underway to find the wreckage and bring closure to the families of its missing passengers and crew
Could the mystery of what happened to Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 finally be revealed? Amateur sleuths monitoring the renewed hunt for the missing aircraft believe they have detected “unusual” activity from search vessels combing the Indian Ocean.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared from radar on 8 March 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to its planned destination, Beijing Capital International Airport in China. A total of 239 people – 227 passengers and 12 crew members – were onboard the flight, all of whom have since been presumed to be dead. The cause of its disappearance has not been determined, and it is widely regarded as the greatest mystery in aviation history.
Countless searches for the aircraft have taken place over the years, with investigators only able to determine a general area they believe the aircraft crashed in the Southern Indian Ocean. On 30 December, a renewed search commenced, conducted by marine robotics firm Ocean Infinity conducting alongside the Malaysian Government.
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Search teams are expected to spend around 55 days surveying some 5,800 square miles of ocean off Australia’s coast, deploying specialist equipment including underwater drones and submersible vehicles.
To date, neither Ocean Infinity nor Malaysian authorities have issued any official updates on progress. But on 5 January, a French-speaking YouTube channel, Gilchecksix, posted a video highlighting what the creator described as peculiar search patterns from one of the vessels.
The speaker explained that in the 24 hours prior he had noticed the vessel was inspecting a very specific area within the wider search radius, something he notes is ‘quite unusual’ for most search and rescue vessels.
He further suggested this could mean search teams had found an area they wanted to investigate further and had returned with a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) to re-examine the area more thoroughly.
The YouTube also added the location is also the area which investigator Jean-Luc Marchand suggested the aircraft could’ve crashed into the sea.
But he emphasised he was only speculating on his findings, and that nothing has been confirmed by Ocean Infinity or the Malaysian government.
It comes after Egypt Air chief engineer Ismail Hamad offered his own assessment of where the aircraft may lie. He told The Express he believes MH370 is located in “a corridor just offshore and near the western Australian coast”.
“This is not guesswork, but it is an engineering inevitability if we follow the aviation fundamentals,” Mr Hamad declared.
He also suggested the wreckage could be found by tracking “the deviation between the magnetic north of the aircraft compass and the true north of the earth”.
