The shocking truth about MH370

The initial suspicion on the disappearance of MH370 was related to two passengers using false passports. This indicated a possible hijacking. The turn flight MH370 made over the South China Sea and around Indonesian territory appeared to support this deliberate act. News breaking out that the co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid had allowed passengers into the cockpit during a previous flight also made this theory appear plausible.

The phone call Fariq was reported to have tried to make over Penang even adds more weight to the MH370 disappearance being a deliberate act. However upon investigation of all the passengers and crew, no links to terrorism was ever made with anybody on the flight. This only exposed a lapse in security as the two passports of the passengers involved where actually on the Interpol database, but not checked by Malaysian Immigration.

This doesn't count out a disturbed member of the crew having a 'death-wish' and using the flight to commit suicide. The captain could have locked the co-pilot out of the cockpit and proceeded down to the Southern Indian Ocean and take the whole plane to a deep ocean grave. This scenario happened on a Silk Air flight some years ago where the captain lost his savings on the stock-market and committed suicide, and with Egypt Air flight 990 where the co-pilot committed suicide by diving the plane straight into the sea.

The latest explanation by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATAC) suggests a power failure, which probably disabled avionic systems where the plane would have flown on auto-pilot until fuel was exhausted, where it would turn into a spiral nose dive going straight into the Southern Indian Ocean. The rebooting of the ACARS system which transmits engine data to the ground suggests a power failure. The lithium batteries in the cargo hold could have been a source of that fire which disabled electronic systems, vital to control and manage a sophisticated aircraft like a Boeing 777. Lithium batteries have caused fires on aircraft before. This is what happened to a South African Airways flight in 1987.

The crew and passengers may have been disabled through hypoxia, where the plane flew on autopilot. This could have been a similar scenario to the Helios Airlines Flight 522 crash in 2005, where two jets were scrambled and the pilots saw all the passengers incapacitated, when the flight eventually crashed after it ran out of fuel.

However this explanation doesn't explain the apparent deliberate flight around Aceh, where MH370 avoided Indonesian radar. This would have to be a carefully planned part of the flight. This scenario points to a purposeful act, and MH370 could have been a hijacking gone wrong, something like Ethiopia Airways Flight 961, where the plane ran out of fuel and crashed into the sea in 1996.

The shocking truth about MH370 is that we don't really know what happened on that night of 8^th March 2014, how the flight ended, and what became of the passengers and aircraft. Everything the authorities have said is pure speculation. The black box data recorder holds all the secrets to the doomed flight. This needs to be recovered before the truth can be known with certainty.

Even with all the technology we have today, the Earth is larger than we think. Satellite photography, the US ability to identify any missile launch on the face of the Earth, aviation procedures and protocols, and defence surveillance around the globe failed to notice and find a rogue aircraft, even post 911.

Ideas are needed and resources allocated to help prevent this scenario ever happening again. However almost two years after the disappearance of MH370, nothing has been put in place to enable the tracking of rogue aircraft, should they deviate from flight plans and procedures.

The solutions exist and are in practice. Over the vast region of Hudson Bay, radar blind spots are covered by approximations using flight plans, GPS, and broadcasts under an Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast (ADSB) system. Such systems are not operating within South-East Asia and Indian Ocean. The MH370 tragedy indicates that the skies over the region are not being watched closely at all. This lack of diligent surveillance has made the search for MH370 the most costly in history.

The shocking truth about MH370 is that the relatives and loved ones of the people on MH370 may not get closure for two or three generations to come.

The mystery of MH370 may only be finally put to rest in the later part of this century, and this may only happen by accident.