MH370’s resting place a $10m question

Estimated final flight path of MH370 extending beyond the ATSB search area.

Former prime minister Tony ­Abbott said on the recent MH370 Sky News documentary that the search for MH370 should continue as it is the decent thing to do to bring closure to the families of the deceased.

Such a

shame that the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, when informed by the FBI in mid-2014 that the MH370 captain was the presumed “guilty” party and supplied his practice flight plan to the southern Indian Ocean, did not search just that ­little bit further south past latitude 39S where a controlled glide would have ended up.

The bureau would have won ­either way. Find the wreckage and they are heroes. Fail to find it, the pilot hijack scenario would have been laid to rest and aviation experts could have ceased their complaining that the ATSB was searching in the wrong area.

It was agreed by the Defence Science and Technology Group, ATSB, Joint Agency Coordination Centre, Civil Aviation Safety Authority and the Independent Pilots Group that the DSTG’s 7th arc/38S red hotspot of where, using satellite information and bayesian mathematical modelling, the Malaysia Airlines’ Boeing 777 ran out of fuel and commenced a descent, with a probability factor of greater than 99 per cent.

British Boeing 777 captain Simon Hardy managed an 88 nautical miles (160km) glide in a 777 simulator after fuel exhaustion at latitude 38S.

A search of a circle with a radius of 160km gives a search area of 80,000sq km. Since the aircraft was on a southerly heading, the southern semicircle search area is 40,000sq km. But 70 per cent of this area falls within the ATSB’s already searched green rectangle based on 40 nautical miles either side of the 7th arc, reducing the area to 12,000sq km.

Logic would indicate against a downwind ditching, which would reduce again the now triangular area to 7000sq km. This Hardy triangle search area could be searched in under a week for less than $10m.

In the Sky News documentary, in a B777 simulator with investigative journalist Peter Stefanovic as my co-pilot, I turned into wind at 70 nautical miles on the glide descent and ditched at S39.10 E88.18, which is in the centre of the area.

The logistics are challenging as the search area is 2200km southwest of Perth, but with the weather window and calmer seas being favourable from October, the government should make a decision soon so planning can begin.

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