Missing MH370 expert finds ‘crucial clue’ so ‘perfect crime’ can be solved at last

The Boeing 777 – with its 12 Malaysian crew and 227 passengers – vanished over the Indian Ocean in 2014 after taking off from Kuala Lumpur on a routine flight to Beijing

An aircraft engineer believes he’s found a crucial clue that could unravel the enduring mystery of the vanished Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, just as new efforts to locate the plane are set to begin.

The Boeing 777, carrying 12 Malaysian crew members and 227 passengers, disappeared over the Indian Ocean in 2014 after departing Kuala Lumpur for a routine flight to Beijing.

The plane dropped off radar while over the Andaman Sea, shortly after deviating from its planned route.

Satellites continued to pick up hourly signals from the aircraft – suggesting it was still airborne – for several hours until it is presumed to have exhausted its fuel supply.

The missing aircraft remains at the heart of aviation’s biggest enigma and is the deadliest single incident involving a disappeared plane.

American marine robotics firm Ocean Infinity, which located Sir Ernest Shackleton’s lost ship Endurance in 2022, is gearing up for another attempt to find the wreckage, following an unsuccessful search in 2018, reports the Mirror.

Ismail Hamad, chief engineer at Egypt Air, told the Mirror that while he doesn’t dismiss the possibility of a ‘perfect crime’ with the Malaysian plane ending up in one of the lakes or deserted airstrips scattered across the Philippine islands, there’s one aspect he feels is being overlooked.

Hamad urged the Malaysian government to abandon their relentless search off Perth’s coastline and “do the right positive thing by taking into account the deviation of the plane’s magnetic compass to estimate the intended search area first.”

He suspects a hijacker would have touched down the aircraft on one of the deserted airstrips or lakes scattered throughout the Philippine archipelago’s labyrinth of 7,641 islands.

Malaysia’s Transport Ministry revealed that Ocean Infinity has resumed an intermittent 55-day search operation, with an Armada 86 05 search vessel reaching the designated search zone equipped with two autonomous underwater vehicles.

Hamad maintains the aircraft’s whereabouts can be determined by examining “the deviation between the magnetic north of the aircraft compass and the true north of the earth.”

He explained: “That deviation value result of a continuous seven flight hours start from Malacca straight till the fallen point of the aircraft will trace a logical arc southward into the Indian Ocean, but not in the same previously searched and very deep area offshore of Perth or in the depths of 6000m off Broken Ridge.”

Rather, Hamad is convinced the aircraft lies in a “corridor just offshore and near the western Australian coast, a relatively shallow zone where debris could be near the ocean surface or by sonar-detectable with existing technology.”

He added: “This is not guesswork, but it is an engineering inevitability if we follow the aviation fundamentals.”

Discussing the wreckage discovered off Africa’s East Coast, Hamad explained: “We do not find signs of damage, which indicates the crashing of the plane with the turbulent surface of the ocean water and the subsequent explosion of the aircraft due to saturating its tanks with fuel vapour.

“We cannot find on these pieces the damages of dents, sooty appearance or dark discolouration due to the explosion of the tanks. I think that the compass drift value in combination with the fuel consumption equations and the data of Inmarsat satellite handshakes will narrow the official search arc area to nearly 10 per cent of the current radius.

“Relying solely on Inmarsat satellite Signals has trapped the investigators in a decade of confusion. If we assume the aircraft completed its path to the south relying just on the aircraft’s gyro-stabilised magnetic compass for heading deliberately without an autopilot system to evade detection, we will find its final resting place.”