Where MH370 search could go after new site ruled ‘highly unlikely’

A review into missing aircraft MH370 has debunked a new location theory but has concluded the file is far from closed.

Hopes of finding missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 have again been scotched with an Australian Transport Safety Bureau review declaring a proposed new site as “highly unlikely”.

But the file on the disappearance of the aircraft and its 239 passengers and crew is far from over with thousands of kilometres remaining unsearched and another report up for analysis.

Late last year British aerospace engineer Richard Godfrey proposed a new impact location from an alternate flight path of the missing aircraft in a detailed technical report, raising prospects of the breakthrough families of those on board have prayed for since its March 2014 disappearance.

That hope only escalated when in February this year the ATSB announced it had partnered with Geoscience Australia with a team of experts going through the Godfrey evidence, which largely relied on previously not reviewed “disturbances” of an object crossing ham radio operator signals.

ATSB Chief Commissioner Angus Mitchell. Supplied by Sky News

In a joint statement, the ATSB and Geoscience Australia concluded it was highly unlikely “there is an aircraft debris field” within the area proposed, 1900km west of Perth. The area was previously searched by Texas-based marine search robotics company Ocean Infinity.

The review, in an 11-page public report, identified 11 objects below the Indian Ocean not analysed during the original search five years ago however, none were assessed to be from an aircraft.

“Eight of the objects were assessed as most likely geological features, and while three were identified as anthropogenic, i.e. not naturally occurring, none were determined to be associated with an aircraft,” ATSB Chief Commissioner Angus Mitchell said.

Royal New Zealand Airforce (RNZAF) Squadron Leader Brett McKenzie in a P-3K2-Orion aircraft in 2014 helping to look for objects during the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, off Perth. Picture: AFP

That said the report concluded: “However, there remains a significant area of 12,100 km2 within the 40NW (nautical mile) radius from the proposed crash location as well as 72.79 km2 area of gaps … Review of the Ocean Infinity search data and additional data acquisition would be required in order to definitively ascertain if the aircraft rests in these areas.”

Geoscience Australia Chief Executive Officer Dr James Johnson said over a two-month period, a team of experts had reviewed a band of high-resolution sonar imagery spanning 4900 square kilometres.   

“This data allowed us to detect objects as small as 30 centimetres by 30 centimetres. If the aircraft was within the area we have reviewed, the sonar data would have shown a scatter field of highly reflective debris,” Dr Johnson said.  

Malaysia Airline aircraft taxi at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

Mr Mitchell added: “The ATSB concluded its formal involvement in the search for MH370 in 2017 but we acknowledge the importance of locating the aircraft to provide answers and closure to the families of those who lost loved ones and in the interests of aviation safety.”

That is unlikely to be the end of the story however with other reports now emerging.

BAE aerospace senior systems engineer Sergio Cavaiuolo, spending years of his private time and money, has sent out for peer review an updated, more technical report, suggesting the aircraft went west not south and hit the water closer to the Maldives where drift patterns of debris found also suggests it could be.

His report was publicly released for peer review last month. Mr Cavaiuolo has travelled to the Maldives to prove his theory.

Originally published as Where MH370 search could go after new site ruled ‘highly unlikely’