MH370 ‘death dive’ theory doubted by US expert

A US crash investigation expert has cast doubt on the ATSB’s ‘death dive’ theory for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

A leading international air crash investigation expert has cast doubt on the Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s “death dive” theory for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, saying the satellite data is not good enough to conclude the aircraft crashed in a fast and unpiloted descent.

Captain John Cox, an American former airline pilot and now air safety consultant, said the evidence was not reliable enough to support with confidence either the ATSB’s contention or the ­increasingly canvassed competing theory that captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah flew the plane to the end, either ditching under power or in a controlled glide.

MH370 disappeared on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014 with 239 people on board, with the radar transponder turned off and radio contact lost soon into the flight.

Military radar tracked it flying back over Malaysia and over the Andaman Sea, and satellite “handshake” data from the aircraft showed it turned to take a long final leg south to the southern Indian Ocean.

Captain Cox, who has served on many major air crash investigations of the US National Transportation Safety Board, believes the most likely theory is Zaharie hijacked his own aircraft, but said how the jet finally came down had not been determined. The “end of flight” scenario is crucial because the ATSB, which is conducting the underwater search for MH370, has designed the target area based on what media have dubbed the “death dive” theory, although the ATSB does not use that term.

A controlled glide would have taken the Boeing 777 well outside that designated search area.

The ATSB has denied claims it has played down the “rogue pilot” and “controlled glide” ­theories at the behest of Malaysia. ATSB chief commissioner Greg Hood has insisted analysis of Inmarsat satellite tracking data by defence scientists had concluded that MH370 rapidly descended in an unpiloted crash after fuel exhaustion.

Captain Cox told The Australian: “I do not believe there is sufficient data in the Inmarsat data to draw any conclusion on the rate of descent.”

He said while this sort of data, derived from hourly “pings” ­between the aircraft and the satellite, was reliable for tracking an aircraft’s course, it was not sufficiently accurate to determine rates of ascent and descent.

In a statement, the ATSB maintained its position on the validity of the satellite data as analysed by the Defence Science and Technology Organisation.

“This analysis concludes that the metadata ­associated with the final two satellite communications from the aircraft to the ground earth station indicates that the aircraft was in a high, and increasing, rate of descent,” the statement said.