A scientist claims to have pinpointed the ‘perfect hiding place’ for Malaysian Airlines MH370, over a decade after the plane mysteriously vanished.
Vincent Lyne, an adjunct researcher at the University of Tasmania, suggests that the available evidence points to the plane being deliberately flown into a deep 6,000-meter (20,000-foot) ‘hole’ in the Indian Ocean’s Broken Ridge.
Lyne, who works at the university’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, describes Broken Ridge as “a very rugged and dangerous ocean environment” with “narrow steep sides, surrounded by massive ridges and other deep holes.” He believes this makes it an ideal location for hiding the aircraft, suggesting that the pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, intentionally crashed the plane, which had 239 people on board.
Lyne wrote on LinkedIn: “This work changes the narrative of MH370’s disappearance from one of no-blame fuel starvation at the 7th arc, high-speed dive, to a mastermind pilot executing an incredible perfect-disappearance in the Southern Indian Ocean.”
He added that the plane’s wings, flap, and flaperon damage were similar to that seen in the 2009 controlled ditching of US Airways Flight 1549 by Captain Chesley Sullenberger. This, Lyne argues, supports the theory of a deliberate, controlled ditching by the MH370 pilot.
Lyne’s theory challenges the prevailing belief that the plane went into an uncontrolled dive after running out of fuel. He asserts that newly discovered signals and debris analysis suggest the pilot made a calculated decision to make the plane disappear.
He is urging officials to prioritize searching the specific section of the Southern Indian Ocean he has identified, claiming that science “unmistakably points to where MH370 lies.”
The theory has previously been explored by British pilot Simon Hardy, who also suggested the plane was intentionally sunk in an area that has yet to be thoroughly searched.
