ATSB search for MH370 the greatest farce in aviation history

Why did it insist on assuming that no pilot was in control?

Three years have passed since MH370 suddenly disappeared two minutes after the experienced and highly regarded Captain Zaharie Shah said goodnight to Kuala Lumpur air traffic control. The initial frantic search in the South China Sea was switched to the southern Indian Ocean when satellite pings revealed the aircraft had flown for another seven hours and subsequent military primary radar analysis revealed a precise, complicated and obviously pre-planned route across northern Malaysia, bypassing several airfields on the way.

With no evidence to support the theory, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau went with the theory of a sudden unresponsive pilot based on a decompression or similar event. But the aircraft would have continued to its destination, Beijing, unless the flight management computer was reprogrammed.

Was the ATSB directed from above to use this theory because of political correctness? The ATSB, responsible for road, rail, ship and aircraft accident investigations, relied on scientists and engineers to work out the search area, but ­ignored the cries from highly qualified airline pilots that it was obviously a pilot hijack.

Even when told by the FBI, as I was several months after the disappearance, that Zaharie was the likely culprit based on the discovery of a deleted flight plan from his home computer simulator set-up that led to the southern Indian Ocean and followed the route actually flown by MH370, the ATSB continued with its rubbish theory.

The ATSB based the search area calculations on a final ping using Bayesian mathematical modelling, which relies on supposition and probabilities (guesswork), yet the fidelity of the simulations in an engineering simulator (I used a B777 Full Flight Simulator in December 2015 to such effect) is suspect because heading, speed, altitude and configuration were unknown, but mostly because the ATSB imagined a dead pilot when both engines finally flamed out due to lack of fuel.

The ATSB report of December 3, 2015, presented by then transport minister Warren Truss, titled MH370 — Definition of Underwater Search Areas, displays aviation incompetence on the part of whoever compiled the report.

On page 13 under a main heading, “Search area width”, is the heading “Simulator data”. Under this it says: “The aircraft behaviour after the engine flame-out(s) was tested in a Boeing engineering simulator. In each test case, the aircraft began turning to the left and remained in a banked turn.”

Remained in a banked turn? What a load of rubbish. There has never been a piloted aircraft where, when the autopilot disconnects due to loss of electrical power (engine flame-outs), the aircraft can continue flying without pilot input to keep the wings level. The aircraft would, in short order, roll into a spiral dive and hit the sea at more than 1000km/h, exploding into thousands of pieces of debris — flotsam — some of which would still be floating today. This never happened, which means a pilot was in control: a pilot trying to hide the aircraft in as remote a location as possible, and who wrecked the aircraft by ditching it.

On the same page, under the heading “Basic turn analysis”, it says: “The ATSB performed a basic trajectory analysis of an uncontrolled, but stable aircraft.”

Uncontrolled but stable aircraft? No such animal exists. This aerodynamically impossible rubbish was an attempt by the ATSB to con the public into believing its search area and unresponsive pilot were mutually compatible.

Three years have been wasted searching by the now very rich Dutch company Fugro. Its search vessels are fitted with hi-tech equipment and would undoubtedly have located a 60m, 170-tonne aircraft wreckage if they had been in the correct area.

I have been flying jet aircraft for 46 years and have thousands of hours in command of B777 aircraft. To say I am disgusted with the performance of the taxpayer-funded ATSB is to put it mildly.

There is little will to continue the search. Boeing, the US National Transport Safety Board and major airlines operating B777s would consider it imperative to continue searching for the aircraft if they thought a technical fault brought down MH370. However, their lack of interest is indicative that they, like the ­majority of airline pilots, consider this was down to the actions of a rogue pilot.

Requiem for MH370 and the search — the greatest farce in aviation history.

Byron Bailey was a senior captain with Emirates for 15 years and is a former RAAF fighter pilot.