MH370: why expert evidence doesn’t fly

Peter Foley as director of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau search for MH370 got away lightly during Senate estimates. Because he is not an aviator he could throw in red herrings such as talking about an overweight captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, aged 53, being on oxygen at 40,000 feet and not coping.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 left its planned route at 35,000 feet — a completely different kettle of fish as 35,000 feet on 100 per cent oxygen is the same, blood-oxygen level wise, as breathing normally at 10,000 feet.

Foley also didn’t mention that the passenger oxygen supply is a chemically generated individual mask system that lasts only 10 minutes. It is time to stop the ATSB referring to its expert evidence to support the death-dive theory. Unless scientists have flying experience they are not qualified to propose flight-path analysis.

The ATSB has no evidence to support its death-dive theory other than the two satellite tracking data sets over eight seconds showing a large doppler increase, which it claims indicates a rapid descent or “death dive”. Any descent will produce an increase in doppler shift, and a pilot on dual-engine shutdown would point the nose down fast, otherwise the drag configuration from the engines could stall the aircraft. In any event, with the ATSB admission that the pilot was in control for the first two hours of the flight, a mass murder has occurred.

Byron Bailey is a former RAAF fighter pilot and flew Boeing 777s as an airline captain.