Authorities must heed pilot experts on MH370

The sixth anniversary of the March 8, 2014 disappearance of MH370 looms large.

Next week a two-part investigative documentary airs on Wednesday and Thursday on Sky News and Foxtel.

Investigative reporter Peter Stefanovic reveals information that may indicate MH370 was hijacked by the captain.

This very conclusion was obvious at the start to aviation experts. So why did the Australian Transport Safety Bureau plan the MH370 search based on the pilots experiencing a terminal event over the South China Sea that resulted in a death dive seven hours later, into the southern Indian Ocean?

They persisted with this nonsense even when told by the FBI that the captain was responsible.

As part of the documentary I, with Peter Stefanovic as my co-pilot, demonstrated in a Boeing 777 simulator the ATSB death dive that resulted in the B777 hitting the ocean at more than 600 knots (1100km/h).

The Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX crash had a very large floating debris field, yet the Boeing 777, with twice the velocity and twice the mass resulting in kinetic energy eight times greater, would have produced an enormous floating debris field, some of which would have floated for months. This obviously did not happen.

I also demonstrated the pilot-controlled glide preferred, according to my ATSB source, by the ATSB aviation expert (but overruled). The Defence Scientific Technology Group calculated with 99 per cent probability using the hourly satellite transmissions that MH370 crossed latitude 38S on the seventh satellite arc as it started its descent.

The ATSB, Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre, Civil Aviation Safety Authority and Independent Pilots’ Group all agreed with this finding presented in 2014 by the then transport minister Warren Truss. I therefore began the descent, into a glide from 39,000 feet, passing latitude 38S. Passing 39S I turned the B777 into the southwesterly wind, progressively lowering flap for a ditching at 120 knots (200km/h).

For 5½ years, Captain Simon Hardy (British B777 pilot), myself, Captain Mike Keane (a former chief pilot of Britain’s largest airline) and others of the IPG such as mathematician Robin Stevens have continually pointed out that all the evidence shows that MH370 lies in that small “Hardy triangle” south of latitude 39S.

The ATSB has not been in a position to undertake any further searches with no funding forthcoming from the Australian or Malaysian governments.

The Sky News documentary will provide more reasons for MH370 to be found. MH370 documents were denied release under an FOI request by The Australian, as it would harm international relations.

Byron Bailey is a former RAAF fighter jet pilot and flew B777s as an airline captain.