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A BOMBSHELL new £55million hunt for the missing plane MH370 could be the last ever chance to solve the world’s biggest aviation mystery – but the new search location remains shrouded in secrecy.
Last month, the Malaysian Government approved the fresh hunt for the plane that vanished on March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers onboard.
ALAMYThe official narrative suggests the Boeing 777, piloted by Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah seen here, made severely bizarre moves before flying towards the Southern Indian Ocean for several hours – likely crashing in an unknown location.
TIMESExperts from underwater robotic company Ocean Infinity are now set to search an area near the jet’s last communication point known as the Seventh Arc on a ‘no find, no fee’ basis.
As the plane flew South a satellite belonging to the British telecoms company Inmarsat picked up signals from the jet creating seven “arcs” or pings shown below almost hourly.
The company will use high-tech robotic vessels to scour the seafloor for any trace of the doomed jet.
OCEAN INFINITYIf the wreckage is found in the last-ditched attempt nearly a decade on, Ocean Infinity will receive a huge £55million payout from the Malaysian Government.
Previous searches, including the biggest in aviation history led by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau(ATSB) & a 2018 search by Ocean Infinity, have failed to find the plane and many experts have raised doubts about the new hunt.
A timeline of the previous searches for MH370 can be seen below:
March 8 2014: MH370 departed Kuala Lumpur at 00:42 UTC, en route to Beijing
March 8 2014: Approximately 38 minutes after takeoff, MH370 lost contact with air traffic control over the South China Sea
March 8 2014: The last verbal communication from the cockpit, “Good night Malaysian three seven zero”, occurred as the plane left Malaysian airspace
March 9 2014: Search and rescue operations commenced, initially focused on the South China Sea and the Straits of Malacca
March 9 2014: Inmarsat revealed that the flight continued for several hours after losing contact
March 11 2014: Inmarsat provided satellite data to investigators
March 15 2014: Inmarsat data indicated a possible flight path across the southern Indian Ocean
March 17 2014: Australia assumed leadership of the search and rescue operation in the southern Indian Ocean at Malaysia’s request
March 18 2014:The aerial search commenced in the southern Indian Ocean
March 24 2014: Malaysia officially declared that MH370 crashed in the southern Indian Ocean, with no survivors
July 29 2015: A flaperon from MH370 washed ashore on Réunion Island
Jan 1 2017: The official search was suspended
Jan 21 2018: Ocean Infinity resumed the underwater search
June 8 2018: Ocean Infinity ended its underwater search without success
Dec 20 2024: Malaysia agreed to launch a new search for MH370
MH370 journalist Jeff Wise told The Sun: “The reason that they searched the seabed in the first place starting in 2014 was that they had analysed these signals from Inmarsat.
“They developed a theory of what had happened to the plane. They based a search area on that mathematical analysis. They searched and the plane wasn’t there.
“The way the probability distributions work is that it’s kind of like a fried egg that you have the high concentration in the middle.
“That’s the yolk, and then, as you sort of get away from the middle the probability gets less and less and less.
“The further they go out the more meagre the probability area is and so, even if you assume that the plane went into the Southern Ocean, even in the best-case scenario they’re really unlikely to find it.”
Ocean Infinity is yet to confirm the exact new search but CEO Oliver Plunkett told The Sun: “After a long wait, Transport Minister Anthony Loke’s statement is great news. We look forward to sharing further updates once we’ve finalised the details.”
After the bombshell update, The Sun looks at three potential search areas that could be combed by Ocean Infinity’s robotic sea vessels.
SEARCH AREA ONE
Since the Malaysian Airlines flight vanished over a decade ago, a group of experts have come together to form the Independent Group(IG).
A collective of experts who look to untangle the complexities involved in the disappearance of MH370.
The group believes the new location will cover a 15,000 sqkm area of previously searched ocean floor while extending into a new zone of 155 sqkm – a much smaller area than originally searched.
The group suggests that Ocean Infinity “plans to ‘fill in’ areas that were previously searched that had low quality or missing data due to equipment failures or challenging terrain.”
Ex-naval officer Peter Waring who was involved heavily in the previous ATSB search told The Sun that the crew who searched the terrain there suffered some of the most treachous conditions on earth.
LINKEDINHe said: “This is arguably the most rough area of ocean in terms of sea state in the world…”
He also disputed the suggestion that the wreckage was missed because the search area was scanned so precisely even picking up pieces of coal from a Victorian shipwreck.
The plan also incorporates a “high priority area” mapped out by the IG to the south that was missed by previous searches due to “slopping terrain”.
The area above the dotted line on the map below was previously scoured in the ATSB search while the area below was covered by Ocean Infinity in their last hunt.
The missed spot sits in the middle of the sea slopes that the ATSB vessel “GO Phoniex” was unable to travel over.
The search area was outlined by expert and member of the group Victor Iannello in 2020 and was presented at a meeting with the Malaysian Government and Ocean Infinity before the new search was confirmed.
Jeff Wise, whose podcast Finding MH370 delves into the mystery, believes the area mapped out by the IG to be the one most likely to be scoured by Ocean Infinity but he warns that the chances of success are slim.
Jeff said: “So they searched along this band called the Seventh Arc and they didn’t find it[MH370] anywhere within a certain distance from that arc.
“And so you go back and you recalculate and you think, okay? Well, if you assume that it went South, and all these people did assume that it did go South, how come we didn’t find it? Where did we go wrong? What did the plane do? That took us by surprise.
“And so the answer is, either it flew a little further after sending that last signal than we thought or it fell right where we calculated, but when it fell it kind of slipped into maybe a crevasse, or it fell next to a cliff, and it was like hidden.
“There’s a certain small percentage of this area that they searched that they think well, maybe we just got really really unlucky, and it fell into that shadow or that crevice…these are both very low probability.”
“…at this point, they’re really out of good ideas”.
SEARCH AREA TWO
It’s thought that Weak Signal Propagation(WSPR) technology could play a big part in the new search with Professor Simon Maskell acting as an adviser to the Ocean Infinity team.
Simon and his team at Liverpool University have been investigating the possibility of using WSPR technology to detect and track aircraft in a new study.
It involves looking at radio waves propagating around the world to see if the signal has been disturbed by a plane travelling through – like activating tripwires.
Expert Richard Godfrey, seen here, suggested that MH370’s final flight path could be tracked by looking at signals or “tripwires” that were disturbed on the night of March 8th.
RICHARD GODFREYOcean Infinity is said to be considering the radio signal data as part of its new search, according to reports.
He believes the final resting place is “highly likely to be in an area with a radius of 30km centred on the 29.128°S 99.934°E. This area is around 1,560 km West of Perth, Australia.”
The map below shows Richard Godfrey’s suggested crash site for MH370 just beyond the previous search area on the 7th Arc.
He previously told The Sun: “I’m hopeful that MH370 will be found the question is when and who will do the finding, I think Ocean Infinity is best placed to find the wreckage.”
Richard was a founding member of the Independent Group and was thanked by name in the ATSB’s final accident report back in 2017.
But many MH370 experts have doubts about the validity of WSPR technology and whether the method has been rigorously tested or proven.
The creator of WSPR technology, Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Taylor, warned that the historical data would be of little use for tracking aircraft based on his own research.
SEARCH AREA THREE
Another possible search area could be a never-before-searched spot suggested to the Sun by Brit Boeing 777 pilot Simon Hardy, seen here.
The pilot was invited to join the search with the ATSB in 2015, where a team of experts were leading the hunt.
AFPHe was able to give his expert opinion and test out theories using the world’s best flight simulators until the search was wrapped up in 2017.
His calculations put the resting place for the plane just outside the official search area – and despite consulting on the operation, he never had the chance to prove his theory.
Simon believes that the “suicidal” pilot carried out his meticulous plan to kill everyone onboard, entombing them inside the jet before neatly ditching the aircraft in a deep trench on the seafloor.
He said key clues such as bombshell docs that show extra fuel and oxygen added to the flight, satellite handshakes that tracked the doomed flight’s course, and the lack of debris all point to the same conclusion.
SUPPLIEDCaptain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, was heading for the Geelvinck Fracture Zone just beyond the Seventh Arc, Simon claimed.
The map below shows Simon’s suggested crash site.
Speaking to The Sun previously, Simon Hardy said: “If you did manage to get it[MH370] in there you might find you get it buried after a few years by rocks, so it might even be at the bottom of the sea covered.”
The Boeing 777 pilot explained how he used very complex maths to rule out nearly 5,000 other routes to one unique flight path.
The flight path suggested that MH370 would be flying at a speed of 488 knots – the exact cruising speed of a Boeing 777 used every day by commercial airline pilots.
He said: “That’s when I started thinking, ‘Oh god I’ve got something’. They were two monumental things.”
Simon’s groundbreaking technique was published online by aviation journalists and a call from the Canberra ATSB HQ followed.
Despite speculation from various experts on where the new search area might be, Ocean Infinity is yet to confirm any details.
It’s feared this could be the final search for the jet at least in the South Indian Ocean.
Jeff says that if nothing else emerges from the fresh hunt, it would at least prove that there have been some serious failings and authorities need to look elsewhere.
He said: “There are things that can be done to solve the mystery of MH370, searching the seabed isn’t one of them. It’s not a productive thing that you can do to try to solve the mystery.
“…They need to have a serious panel of experts who come in with a blank slate and look at all of the information in detail. It’s a very detailed and technically complicated case.
“They need to think about all they have huge tons of evidence, but they just need to really assess it in a scientific way.
They can build an atomic bomb. They can put a man on the moon. They can certainly solve the case of MH370. But they’re not doing anything like the Apollo project or the Manhattan Project. They’re not treating it with that level of seriousness.
“We have to change the approach. The approach that’s been taken over the last 11 years is not serious.
Talking about the reason for the new search Jeff added: “They must have a reason to want to throw millions of dollars into the ocean.
“They are setting a big pile of money on fire, and they must have some analysis behind it. I don’t know what that analysis is…maybe they might know something that I don’t. They certainly have a lot more resources than I do.”
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