MH370 flaps were on ‘cruise’ before crash

Examination of wreckage from MH370 indicates its flaps were in a ‘cruise’ position when it crashed.

Darren Chester, left, with ATSB chief commissioner Greg Hood and air safety experts examining a wing flap of Flight MH370 in Canberra yesterday. Picture: Ray Strange

Examination of wreckage from the missing Malaysia Airlines jet MH370 indicates its flaps were in a “cruise” position and not lowered for a controlled landing when it slammed into the ocean, according to the air safety watchdog.

MH370 and its 239 passengers and crew vanished on March 8, 2014, 2600km off the West Australian coast, after having taken off from Kuala Lumpur on a flight to ­Beijing. It has been suggested by some critics of the search strategy that once the aircraft ran out of fuel, the pilot may have glided it for some distance out of what has ­become the search area.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau based its selection of the area to be searched on analysis of automated signals ­received from MH370 during its fatal flight. They indicated that the aircraft flew steadily southward for several hours before running out of fuel and then falling fast into the ocean. Latest research by the ATSB includes the results of an examination of a wing flap ­believed to have been torn from the jet as it hit the water. It says the flap is unlikely to have been ­deployed for landing as it would have been had there been a pilot at the controls.

The report also suggests, from CSIRO drift analysis, that the missing aircraft is likely to be in the current 120,000sq km area or to the north of it. All but 10,000sq km has been searched, without any trace of the airliner. The flap, now central to this report, appears to have drifted for more than a year and washed up on the coast of Tanzania in east Africa.

It was part of the right wing ­positioned next to another control surface known as a ­“flaperon” that washed up on Reunion Island. The report also reveals preliminary conclusions from a drift analysis program in which the CSIRO examined decades of records of programs plotting ocean currents and wind behaviour and placed replica ­flaperons into the ocean to see how they would behave.

The CSIRO concluded so far that the search area was a possible area of origin for the recovered ­debris. It noted that because no debris had been found around the West Australian coast, “this indicates that a starting location within the current search area, or further north, is more likely”.

The report also includes detailed analysis of the last brief signals received from the aircraft which support the view that it fell very fast after it ran out of fuel and that it is likely to have hit the water within the area being searched.

The report says the signals data indicated that the aircraft was “in a high and increasing rate of decent at that time”.

Transport Minister Darren Chester said the search of sea floor, up to 6km deep in places, is likely to end early next year. He described the search as both “historic” and “heroic”.

The members of an inter­national advisory team of aviation and communications specialists are in Canberra to carry out a “first principles review” of all of the evidence accumulated to identify the likely search area.

Mr Chester’s spokeswoman last night strongly rejected media reports the review was intended to build a case to have the search continued in an area next to that searched already once the current hunt is completed.