Search for MH370 on again, still looking in the wrong place

Today, the second-last day of 2025, a private company called Ocean Infinity is renewing its search for the remains of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, which vanished from air-traffic radar 39 minutes after departing Kuala Lumpur for Beijing. 

The pilot's last radio call to Kuala Lumpur – "Good night, Malaysian Three Seven Zero" – was the last communication before the aircraft crossed into Vietnamese airspace and failed to check in with controllers there. Minutes later, the plane's transponder, which broadcasts its location, shut down. Military radar showed the jet turn back over the Andaman Sea, and satellite data suggested it continued flying for hours, possibly until it ran out of fuel, before crashing into a remote section of the southern Indian Ocean.

More than a decade of searching has so far turned up almost nothing, except a few small fragments washed ashore along the coast of Africa and on islands in the Indian Ocean. No bodies or large pieces of wreckage have ever been recovered. 

The lack of information and facts has spawned theories ranging from a hijacking to cabin depressurisation or power failure. There was no distress call, ransom demand, evidence of technical failure or severe weather. Malaysian investigators in 2018 cleared the passengers and crew, but did not rule out "unlawful interference". 

Authorities have said someone deliberately severed communications and diverted the plane, but can't say anything about who the "someone" may have been. Walt has followed this story from the beginning, and has his own theory about the "unlawful interference". To see all of our posts, enter "MH370" in the search window. We'll come back to one of those posts in a moment.

The search for the remains of MH370 has already become the most expensive in aviation history, but after more than a decade, very little information has surfaced. [Careful! Ed.] Previous investigations have been conducted in a blaze of publicity, but little has been said about the latest expedition.

A spokesthingy for Ocean Infinity said only, "With the support of the Malaysian government, we are resuming the search for the missing aircraft MH370. Due to the important and sensitive nature of this search, formal communications will come through the Malaysian government." They did, however, release this map, showing the new area to be searched.

The latest search team will have to deal with not only the lack of clarity about where the aircraft went down, but also the rugged ocean floor. According to Simon Maskell, professor of autonomous systems [Wut dat? Ed.] at Liverpool University and a former scientific adviser to Ocean Infinity "The ocean floor is a very complicated environment to navigate around. It’s not just flat. You’ve got huge mountains, ridges and chasms – and you’ve got to look everywhere." He added, "You can have the greatest technology in the world, but if you look in the wrong place, it's not going to help you."

Indeed! The new search area appears to be 1000s of miles away from places where debris has been found, such as the southeastern coast of Madagascar, where a debris hunter named Blaine Gibson found five (5) pieces back in 2016. See "Investigators not interested in picking up more MH370 debris", WWW 12/9/16.

Two of the fragments appeared to show burn marks, which, if confirmed as such, would be the first time such marks have been found. The presence of burn marks would suggest that a disastrous fire would be the proximate cause of the plane's fall into the Indian Ocean. 

Another small piece was found in the same area. Two more turned up on the northeastern beaches of Antsiraka and Riake. Pictures of all five fragments have the "honeycomb" material found in other MH370 debris.

Time for another look at Walt's diagram of the currents prevalent in the Indian Ocean, posted on 31/7/15 in "Current thinking on MH370".

We're putting this up for the third time to underscore Walt's theory that the Australian and other "experts" who have allegedly been searching for the remains of the ill-fated flight have been looking in the wrong place! You'll see Madagascar sandwiched in between the Aquinas and Moçambique currents, at the western edge of the Indian Ocean. The "authorities" have insisted that the plane went down in the previous search area off the western coast of Australia.

Why would they do that? Let me suggest (again) that it's deliberate misdirection, to keep us from asking questions about the involvement of the US millitary, which maintains a huge base on the British island of Diego Garcia, For more, see "MH370: 5 pieces now, all in 'the wrong place'", WWW 12/5/16.

If they really wanted to get at the truth, you'd think the Australians and/or Malaysians would hie themselves off to Réunion, Madagascar, Moçambique and South Africa, where bits and pieces of the missing aircraft have been located. But noooo. Mr Gibson -- a lawyer from Seattle -- was the only one who went there to investigate.

What information do the Malaysian authorities and/or Ocean Infinity have (we'd like to know) that leads them to have another look in the "new" area not that far to the west of their first search site, but quite far from where the only physical clues so far recovered were found? And now that the Republicans are in charge of the War Department, has anyone asked them to shed some light on the greatest aviation mystery since the disappearance of Amelia Earhart? Well???

VIDEO: MH370 - Time for one last search?

It's now been 8 years and 2 weeks since Malaysia Airlines flight 370 (MH370) went down somewhere in the Indian Ocean, during a flight which was supposed to have gone from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. I have been following this story since Day One, and have always maintained that there's more to it than what the "authorities" are willing to tell us. Click here to see the complete list of our posts on this topic.

The mystery of what happened to MH370 is such that it has become one of the most controversial hull losses in the history of aviation. There are many theories, including conspiracy theories. My own theory -- call it crazy if you like -- is that there was some kind of interaction with a military airplane or missile coming from the American military base at Diego Garcia.

The prevailing theory  -- the party line, if you will -- is that MH370 was deliberately flown into the sea by the pilot, in an act of murder-suicide. The "authorities" searched in an area (shown on the map included in my post) which they say is where the wreckage should be, based on their theory and on radar/Inmarsat tracking.

Curiously, while there search has turned up absolutely nothing, debris from the lost airliner keeps washing up far to the west of the area in which they've been searching, along the shores of Madagascar and South Africa, closer to Diego Garcia than to the west coast of Australia, which is where the search was conducted.

A professor of oceanography who appears in this video from Sky News Australia, predicted before the debris was found, that it would turn up where it did. But he was never invited to be part of the search team. In this video, he and other aviation experts debunk the official story, and raise the possibility that searching in the wrong place is part of a cover-up. 

Since this video was made as a TV special, it takes a while to get to the revelation of the exact location which the experts think should be searched. I won't be the guy who spoils it for you.  

  

If the "authorities" really want to find MH370's black boxes, in order to learn what really happened, they have been told yet again where to look. Walt would be happy to see them do so, even if it turns out my theory was wrong. But I won't hold my breath.

VIDEO: Update on the disappearance of Malaysian flight MH370

Longtime readers will remember that Walt took a deep interest in the disappearance on 8 March 2014 of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370. The Boeing 777 vanished without a trace while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Click here to see our complete file on this topic, the most recent post having been written almost 18 months ago. 

To be frank [But you're Walt! Ed.], no new information has emerged since then. But it's hard to forget entirely one of the greatest aviation mysteries of all time. We're happy to repost this calm and clear recap of the events of that fateful day, and the subsequent unsuccessful search for the wreckage.

   

The theory first advanced by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which for some reason led the investigation, was that the most likely cause was a "hypoxia event" -- lack of oxygen resulting in the unconsciousness of the pilot and co-pilot. Investigators never reached any consensus on this theory.

Consideration was given to a number of more sinister explanations, including possible hijacking, a fire (accidental or otherwise) in the plane's cargo, and the intentional shooting down of the aircraft by a military plane based somewhere near south Asia... say at Diego Garcia. The last is my theory and I'm sticking to it!

The Malaysian Ministry of Transport's final report, published in July of 2018, was inconclusive but highlighted Malaysian air traffic controllers' failures to attempt to communicate with the aircraft shortly after its disappearance. 

Absent a definitive cause for the disappearance of MH370, air transport industry safety recommendations and regulations have been intended mostly to prevent a repetition of the circumstances. Corrective measures proposed include increased battery life on underwater locator beacons, lengthening of recording times on flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders, and new standards for aircraft position reporting over the open ocean.

[Ed., can you come up with a snappier conclusion than "Stay tuned."? Walt.] [No. Ed.]

Indonesian fisherman says he saw MH370 crash

Regular readers of WWW will know of my abiding interest in the flight of MH370, the Malaysian Airlines B-777 which vanished from the face of the earth on 8 March 2014. The Malaysian and Australian governments have been working, off and on, to find more than a few fragments of the plane, but admitted last fall that they still don't know what happened to it, or where. For a recap of the more recent developments, see "More pieces of MH370 (?) spark calls for renewed search", WWW 30/11/18.

Theories, including conspiracy theories, abound. My own, as posted several times in the years between then and now, is that the plane crashed into the northern part of the Indian Ocean, somewhere east of the island of Diego Garcia, which is home to a huge US military base. I believe the Pentagon, which has kept shtum on the matter, knows what happened and who is responsible, if only through a regrettable accident. Of course I could be wrong, but... lifetime pct .988.

Still, the mystery remains unsolved a new clues continue to surface. [Was that pun intended? Ed.] Today Yahoo News UK reports that an Indonesian fisherman claims he knows exactly where the missing aircraft went down. He is seen here pointing to the location, in the Strait of Malacca, a busy shipping lane wast of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Rusli Khusmin, a 42-year-old fisherman, says he saw the plane go down in a plume of thick black smoke. "I saw the plane moving from left to right like a broken kite," he told the meeja. "There was no noise, just black smoke as a result of fires before it crashed into the water." He added that there was a strong smell of acidic fumes in the air before the plane crashed. As he watched he recorded his co-ordinates on a GPS, which has now been handed over to investigators.

Mr Khusmin did not say why he waited nearly five years to come forward, but swore an oath of truth on the Koran. His evidence will be sent to Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. Stay tuned.

More pieces of MH370 (?) spark calls for renewed search

This is the 42nd post in which Walt has discussed or mentioned the mystery of the Malaysian Airlines B-777, operating as flight MH370, which vanished off the face of the earth on 8 March 2014. Here are the links to some of the key pieces.
14/3/14 "MH370: Three guesses from Walt" - Note the third suggestion!
19/3/14 "MH370: 1 + 3 = ??? Walt puts two possibilities together"
26/3/14 "For the second time: Diego Garcia is a key piece of the MH370 puzzle" - Diego Garcia is the site of a huge US military installation which dominates south Asia and the Indian Ocean
17/6/14 "Latest on MH370: Inmarsat says search was off target; Canadian ex-pilot blames Malaysian authorities for "bungled inquiry", suggests ulterior motive"
18/12/14 "MH370 - Just fancy that!"

Up to this point, not a trace of the missing aircraft had been found. The theories of Walt and others as to what happened to MH370 were based largely on speculation. Then, in July of 2015, pieces of debris started to turn up. See
29/7/15 "Wreckage of MH370 (?) surfaces" and
31/7/15 "Current thinking on MH370" - Here's where I made a diagram of the currents which brought the debris to the shores of Réunion and (later) Mozambique, Madagascar and South Africa. See
24/3/16 "Wreckage on shores of WESTERN Indian Ocean IS from MH370" and
12/5/16 "MH370: 5 pieces now, all in "the wrong place"

For reasons about which we can only speculate, the "authorities" and "experts" kept searching off the west coast of Australia, and, as Walt predicted, came up with nothing. Nada. Zippo. Lifetime pct .984.
20/12/16 "'Experts' admit looking in the wrong place for MH370"
6/1/18 "New search for MH370 - Walt's advice on how to get answers"
30/7/18 "MH370: 'Third party interference' (= hijacking?) can't be ruled out" - The final report of the official investigation, in which the "authorities" concede that they had no explanation whatever for one of the Great Mysteries of the Sea. Having ignored Walt's advice, they said they really didn't have a clue. Nothing to see here, folks. Fuggedaboutit.

But the families of the 239 people who went down with the plane don't want to forget. They want answers, and are demanding another search, the more so since more pieces of wreckage keep turning up. Here we see the Malaysian Transport Minister, Anthony Loke, examining a piece of debris believed to be from the missing aircraft. This is one of five pieces presented to the Malaysian government today by representatives of people who perished.

Their spokesperson, whose mother was on flight MH370, said the new debris was found by villagers in Madagascar (again!) over the past two years as part of a privately funded search. She said one of the pieces has a readable label and is believed to be a floor panel from the plane. She urged the Malaysian government to make a thorough search in the area Walt suggested years ago -- for debris that could be either buried in sand or floating in waters off the coast of southern Africa and the adjacent islands.

Minister Loke said the debris will be verified by investigators but the government is only open to continuing the search if there is credible evidence of the plane's location. Kind of a funny condition when you consider that without a search, the location of the plane (or what's left of it) can't be determined.

American wreckage hunter Blaine Gibson, on the right in the picture, said the debris has been inspected by independent experts, who believe it is from a Boeing 777. The piece that may be a floor panel indicates the plane may have shattered on impact and that there is no intact fuselage underwater, he said.

As Walt reported, the Malaysian-led independent investigation report released in July highlighted shortcomings in the government's response to the plane's disappearance, including lapses by air traffic control, and a failure to monitor radar continuously and immediately initiate an emergency response.

It also raised the possibility of "intervention by a third party" -- not the US military, of course -- and reiterated the Malaysian theory that the plane was deliberately diverted and flown (by whom?) for over seven hours after severing communications. The report said there was insufficient information to determine if the aircraft broke up in the air or during an impact with the ocean. In summary, the authorities don't have a clue, and, for some mysterious reason, don't seem to want one. Nothing to see here, folks. Fuggedaboutit.

Could MH370 have been hacked? It's possible!

To no-one's great surprise -- certainly not mine -- the latest search for the remains of the Malaysian Airlines B-777 used on flight MH370, which disappeared on 8 March 2014, has come up with nothing. Nada. Zero. Zilch. How could it be otherwise, when (as I've said repeatedly, as in "New search for MH370 - Walt's advice on how to get answers", WWW 6/1/18), the searchers are almost certainly looking in the wrong place!

News.com.au reported last week that although they lost out on the multimillion-dollar finder's fee, the underwater exploration company Ocean Infinity is showing no sign of giving up on the lost plane. Even though the search has been officially called off (again), the Norwegian research vessel MV Seabed Constructor is continuing the hunt on its own, and is now looking in "previously uncharted areas".

Today, instead of talking about where MH370 wound up, let's talk about why it dove into the Indian Ocean (if indeed it did). The leading theory at the moment is that the pilot was suicidal, and flew the aircraft into the briny deep, after depressurizing the cabin to kill all the pax. Plausible, but not the only possibility.

Think about this. Almost anything that's connected to the internet can be hacked. (Look up "internet of things" on Google.) Things connected to the internet include airline operatins and... wait for it... flight controls. That's why airline ops occasionally grind to a halt "because the computer's down."

Thus the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported in government documents, obtained by Motherboard, that it's "only a matter of time" before cyber criminals are able to hack and remotely control an airplane.

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), a Department of Energy government lab, warned in a recent presentation that the "potential of catastrophic disaster is inherently greater in an airborne vehicle." The presentation, about methods used to identify vulnerabilities in commercial aircraft, expanded on research done by the DHS last year, in which they successfully hacked a Boeing 737 by remote means.

Greg Phillips, head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Royal Military College of Canada, told Global News that the cybersecurity of commercial aircraft is indeed a major concern for the industry. "Any significant systems that involve human life are potentially targets for hacking," he said, "and that’s everything from the power grid to the water supply to the sewer to any kind of transportation, so aircraft, rail, etc. They’re all potentially vulnerable because they’re all controlled by computers, so yeah, we do need to worry about them."

A spokesthingy for Airbus Industries commented, "This is an industry issue, and one that we take seriously. However, we do not see any way for this to happen today, and we are constantly reviewing our systems and security procedures to continue to protect against potential cyber-attacks."

Is it possible, then, for cyber criminals to remotely control airplanes today? Probably not, but, Mr Phillips said, it can't be ruled out entirely. "You’d have to be able to communicate with the aircraft either on the ground or while it's in flight, and ideally what you'd want to be able to do is communicate with it in real time so you could tell it to do something like go into a power dive right now and kill everybody."

Say wut?! Isn't that the latest theory on what happened to MH370, which numbered among its passengers scores of Chinese IT professionals? Errr, yes... but of course we're only speculating here. It's equally possible (IMHO) that MH370 was shot down, accidentally or on purpose, by a missile launched by Indian or American armed forces, the latter operating out of the US base at Diego Garcia. Who knows....

MH370 search vessel inexplicably turns off tracking system

More mystery from somewhere in the south Indian Ocean. A month ago tomorrow, Walt reported that a US company, Ocean Infinity, had sent a specially equipped vessel out from Durban, South Africa, to search again for the remains of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, which vanished in mysterious circumstances on 8 March 2014.

Previous searches in an area to the west of the Australian coast turned up nothing. A decision to stop looking was made in December of 2016, but late last year the authorities decided to let Ocean Infinity have a go.

While the first search was in progress, debris from the Boeing 777 had washed up on the shores of South Africa, Moçambique and Réunion Island, in the southwestern part of the Indian Ocean, leading Walt and many others to suggest that the searchers would do well to look to the northeast, to the area around Diego Garcia, the site of a huge American military base. So guess where the search ship, the MV Seabed Constructor, headed? You got it! Due east, right back to the area that had already been scoured without success.

But when they reached the search area, something happened. This weekend News.com.au, an Australian news site, reported that the Seabed Constructor mysteriously switched off its Automatic Identification System (read: tracking system) near an object which the first search teams had not only spotted, but tentatively identified as the fuselage of MH370. Here's the sonar image.

What do you think, boys and girls? Does it look like the wingless body of an aircraft to you? Me either. Turns out that's now thought to be the wreck of the Peruvian transport vessel SV Inca, which vanished en route to Sydney in 1911. Picture: State Library of South Australia

THE state-of-the art vessel tasked with finding missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 mysteriously switched off its Automatic Identification System (AIS) for more than three days, sending some observers into meltdown. But it seems the searchers decided to stop for a better look. Who knows? The sunken ship might be filled with treasure!

But was that the real reason why the search vessel "went dark" last Wednesday? Might it have just been a case of someone adjusting the AIS system settings ahead of departing for Fremantle (Australia), or was it a deliberate action because something else is going on? Is it possible that someone aboard the Seabed Constructor read Walt's advice and had another think about the proposed search area?

People following the progress of the search online have also been made with the missing plane itself. MH340 vanished from radar after its aircraft communications, addressing and reporting system (ACARS) was switched off less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur. One Reddit user commented, "Rogue captain?" Another replied, "If it starts pinging in the Malacca Strait that would be something."

Like the Indian Ocean itself, the mystery deepens. Your comments are welcome. If you know something, tell us! If you're on the landing page and have something to say, click on the headline of this post, and a comments window will open. You never know who's reading WWW!

New search for MH370 - Walt's advice on how to get answers

Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, a Boeing B-777, vanished into thin air -- or deep water -- on 8 March 2014, on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. 227 pas and 12 crew members were on board, and are presumed dead after a 22-month search of a large chunk of the Indian Ocean failed to find the lost plane or any trace of it.

I followed the story closely, from its beginning -- see "MH370: Three guesses from Walt", WWW 14/3/14 -- until the search was ended in December 2016: "'Experts' admit looking in the wrong place for MH370", WWW 20/12/16. And I was among the first to put forward the suggestions that (a) the plane went down far from where the "experts" theorized, and (b) its disappearance was not unrelated to activities at the US military base on Diego Garcia. See "MH370: 1 + 3 = ??? Walt puts two possibilities together", WWW 19/3/14.

Conspiracy theory? You damn betcha! Just because it's a theory doesn't mean there was no conspiracy. All it means is that there's no proof!

But proof may yet be found. Today, Malaysia's government announced that it has approved a new attempt to find the wreckage of MH370. Earlier this week, an American company called Ocean Infinity sent a search vessel to have another look for debris in the southern Indian Ocean. Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said the company, which is working on a "no find, no fee" basis, "are willing to search the area of 25,000 square kilometers (9,653 square miles) pointed out by the expert group near the Australian waters." He did not offer further details.

The company itself said in a statement that the search vessel Seabed Constructor left the South African port of Durban -- take note of that -- on Tuesday, and was taking advantage of favourable weather to move toward "the vicinity of the possible search zone". But where is that, exactly? The first search, from the surface of the Indian Ocean, covered an area of several million square miles west of Australia. The subsequent underwater search mapped 710,000 square kilometers (274,000 square miles) of seabed at depths of up to 6,000 meters, slightly to the west of the initial search area. As Walt predicted, nothing was found. (Lifetime pct .988.)

However... this is where it gets interesting... some debris was found, on Réunion Island and off the coast of Moçambique and South Africa, 1000s of miles away from where the "experts" were looking, on the other side of the Indian Ocean. Here is a nice neat map showing the locations from which debris has been recovered.

How did the bits and pieces, identified specifically on the map, get so far from where the "experts" thought the plane had gone down after (they hypothesized) running out of fuel? Let's look once again at Walt's not-so-nice-and-neat diagram of the ocean currents which likely carried the debris to the south-western shores of the Indian Ocean.

This is the fourth time I've published this map. The first time was in "Current thinking on MH370", on 31 July 2015! (I used it again in "Piece of MH370 engine cover washes up on South African shore", WWW 23/3/16 and "Wreckage on shores of WESTERN Indian Ocean IS from MH370", WWW 24/3/16.)

I've drawn in the location of three major ocean currents -- the Moçambique, Aquinas and South Equatorial currents -- as well as the location of Diego Garcia, a small island leased by the USA from the British and the site of a huge American military establishment. There is some evidence of a sighting of a large airplane with red and blue stripes low in the sky near the Maldives -- due north of Diego Garcia, in the path of the South Equatorial current. See "MH370 - Just fancy that!", WWW 18/12/14. Now then...

My theory is that MH370 was shot down or brought down by some other type of weapon -- a laser beam or interference with the plane's onboard computer -- by persons or forces unknown (not necessarily American, you understand), for reasons only they know, somewhere in the vicinity of Diego Garcia. The wreckage then drifted west and south with the ocean currents named above, with bits of it washing ashore at the points shown on the nice map.

The logical place to search -- as I've been saying for well over three years -- would be around Diego Garcia. Since that's still a pretty large area to cover, especially nearly four years after the fact, I have an even better suggestion. Since the disappearance of MH370, the US of A has had a change of administration. Some of the "mistakes" of the Prez and his Secretary of State Hellery Clinton -- like the Libya debacle -- are coming to light. I suggest that the Malaysian authorities ask President Trump to order an investigation into what the US military knows about the disappearance of MH370. My guess is that if they didn't do it, they know who did!

Yet another piece of MH370 found. Guess where?

Is nobody interested any more in what happened to Malaysian Airlines flight MH370? The Boeing 777 vanished on 8 March 2014, on a flight from Koala Lumpur, Malaysia to Beijing, with 239 pax and crew. Ed. tracks the number of "hits" for the stories we post. He tells me that so far this week the stories about Hellery's health (or lack thereof) are running well ahead of "Investigators not interested in picking up more MH370 debris".

Today we have news of the finding of yet another piece of debris -- a wing flap that washed ashore Pemba Island, just off the coast of Tanzania, at the western edge of the Indian Ocean. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau confirmed today that an analysis had confirmed the part was indeed from the missing aircraft.

The finding of more wreckage from the doomed airliner, 1000s of miles from where the "authorities" say it was supposed to be lends further credence to my theory (and that of many others) that the plane came down somewhere in the north central part of the Indian Ocean, in the vicinity of the US base at Diego Garcia. Of course that doesn't mean the Americans know anything about it. And if you believe that, I have some land in Wyoming that's ripe for development....

Further reading: "Current thinking on MH370", WWW 31/7/15. Includes a map of the Indian Ocean on which I've drawn on prevailing currents. Pemba Island is just to the left of the first "A" in "Aquinas"!

Why I believe Chen Guangwen

Yesterday afternoon, in "What happened to MH370: a Chinese theory", Walt shared a narrative developed by a Chinese blogger, Chen Guangwen, as to the fate of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared on 8 March 2014. Only 5 pieces of wreckage have been found in the 2+ years since then, all far from the supposed crash site.

Mr Chen theorizes that, using drone technology, the American military seized control of the aircraft, diverted it to their base on Diego Garcia, and then flew it into the western Indian Ocean. They did this, he thinks, to keep the Chinese from getting their hands on the remote control devices, which fell into the hands of the Taliban when the Americans decamped from Afghanistan.

Not 12 hours later, I have already received questions. Who in hell is Chen Guangwen? Is his supposed blog real? And how did an article accusing the Chinese government of buying stolen military secrets get through the Great Firewall of China?

I had some doubts myself, but slept on it, and in the cold light of dawn am still inclined to accept that Mr Chen's post is real. Here's why. Suppose his story about the Chinese government making a deal with the Taliban to buy American military secrets is true. Suppose the Chinese put up the money and arranged for the "black boxes" to get as far as Malaysia. Then the Americans intervened and the plane, the black boxes, and Chinese avionics experts wound up in the briny deep.

The Chinese can't say anything officially, see, because to admit they were using the Taliban to steal American military technology isn't helpful for China-US relations, already strained over Chinese claims to larger and larger parts of the South China Sea. But they're really pissed off, and want to get the story out there. So they leak it to Chen Guangwen who puts it in his blog.

Walt reminds the doubters that there is no freedom of speech in China. All, all Internet activity is monitored and censored the 10s of 1000s of assiduous Communists whose sole function is to make sure that nothing is said that the Party doesn't want to be said. Yet Mr Chen's article was all over the Chinese Internet like a rash, to the point where Agent 78's dear old mother saw it and brought it to our Agent's attention. I rest my case.

What happened to MH370: a Chinese theory

A year and five days ago Walt reported that the search for the Malaysian Airlines B777 operating as flight MH370 was being quietly scaled down. Now comes news that the search in the southeast quadrant of the Indian Ocean will come to an end in July, according to Martin Dolan, the chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. (Christine Negroni, who writes about aviation and travel for Forbes, points out that Mr Dolan will retire on the very same day. What a coincidence.

In "Search Ending For MH370 But Mysteries Grow", Ms Negroni expresses consternation at the selection of the Australians to lead the underwater search for the airplane. Who knows, she asks, what political manoeuvering was going on behind the scenes? And why did the Australians give the contract for the operation to a Dutch company, Fugro World Wide, which had no real record in the search and salvage industry, and no equipment at the time? And how did Fugro get away with not producing any publicly available data for two years?

The answer to those questions may well be, as Walt has suggested more than once, that the Powers That Be didn't want the wreckage of MH370 to be found. If that were so, it would make sense to let innocents and incompetents do the looking. It would make even more sense to point them in the wrong direction, towards a deep part of the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia. I'll say it again. They've been looking in the wrong place! If proof is wanted, consider the finding of five (count 'em, 5) pieces of debris, all on the shores of southern Africa and adjacent islands.

So what really happened? What is it that the "authorities" and "experts" don't want the world to know? Agent 78 has walked me through a blog by Chen Guangwen, a Chinese writer, who reckons that both the Americans and the Chinese know the truth of it, but won't tell for reasons which will be apparent momentarily. This is going to take awhile, so stay with me....

It all started (Mr Chen writes) when the Americans pulled out of Afghanistan, leaving behind some highly sophisticated drone software which would enable the user to take over any plane's avionics and fly it by remote control, turning it into a guided missile. That software fell into the hands of the Taliban, who didn't know what to do with it, but did know that it would have enormous value to any country seeking military superiority for whatever reason. So who could they sell it to? The Americans already had the technology. The Russians were enemies. So how about... wait for it... the Chinese?

Mr Chen says that the Taliban, through the agency of its branch in Pakistan (possibly with the connivance of the Pakistani government) sold the lot to the Chinese. But there remained the question of how to get the "black boxes" to China. The solution? Send them via Pakistan to Malaysia -- both countries being sympathetic to Islamic militants -- thence onward to Beijing by... Malaysian Airlines.

Of course! The "black boxes" -- engines of digital sabotage -- were in the cargo hold of MH370! This theory would account as well for the presence on the passenger manifest of several Chinese computer and electronics experts.

Trouble was, it's hard to keep something like this a secret. There are spies everywhere. Chinese spies, Russian spies, British spies, not to mention American spies -- the CIA. Chen Guangwen theorizes that the CIA got wind of the deal and made it a priority to keep the Chinese from getting their hands on the devices. The problem was how to interdict the shipment without admitting that they (the Americans) had not only developed the technology but carelessly let it fall into the hands of a bunch of crazy Muslim extremists?

The answer? Give the invention a trial run, using MH370 as the test vehicle and its passengers as human guinea pigs! It was the American military, then, using an AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System -- my emphasis) plane operating from the American base on Diego Garcia, who caused MH370 to deviate from its flight path and turn to the west-northwest, towards the Maldives, the Andaman Islands (Indian territory) and ultimately Diego Garcia.

If all this sounds vaguely familiar, it's because I wrote something along those lines not a month after MH370 disappeared from the radar screens. See "MH370: Suppose it was a test..." WWW 5/4/14

What happened next (back to Mr Chen now) is that, under the control of the Americans, MH370 landed in the Maldives to refuel and (possibly) some of the pax. (There were a couple of Americans and Israelis on board.) Walt doubts that the plane actually landed, but remembers a report in Paris Match by French author Marc Dugain -- a former CEO of Proteus Airlines -- whose investigation took him to the Maldives, where residents told local media on March 9th (the day the plane disappeared) that they had seen an airliner fly in the direction of Diego Garcia.

"I saw a huge plane fly over us at low altitude," a fisherman on Kudahuvadhoo island told M Dugain. "I saw red and blue stripes on a white background" –- the colours of Malaysia Airlines. Other witnesses confirmed the sighting, but their claims were promptly dismissed by "the authorities". See "MH370 - Just fancy that!"

Mr Chen also thinks that the B777 eventually reached Diegp Garcia, where, he says, the Americans refuelled it, and then flew it -- still by remote control -- to the south, somewhere over the south-western part of the Indian Ocean, where they caused it to plunge into a very deep watery grave. That would account for the five pieces of debris which have washed up on the shores of Réunion, Madagascar and South Africa. What happened to the pax and crew? They, or at least their bodies, were probably still on board when MH370 was sunk.

So there you have it. Except for the part about landing in the Maldives, I find Chen Guangwen's narrative entirely plausible. Will the Chinese and/or the Americans confirm or deny it? Errr, probably not. (Lifetime pct .981.)

MH370: 5 pieces now, all in "the wrong place"

Speaking of airplanes -- see yesterday's post (with video!) about the amazing An-225 Mriya -- you may be wondering what's become of the search for the wreckage of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, which went down somewhere in the Indian Ocean in March of 2014. When last we checked (WWW 24/3/16), two more pieces of debris had been found on the western fringes of the Indian Ocean, 1000s of miles from the search zone in the southeastern quadrant of said ocean.

Walt and others have suggested all along that the "authorities" are looking for the wreck in the wrong place. Whether they're doing so as a result of lack of information or deliberate disinformation is part of the Mystery of MH370. But more evidence that the search has somehow been misdirected surfaced (if you'll forgive the pun) yesterday, when the Malaysian government confirmed that two more pieces of debris have been found, making the total number recovered five. Can you guess where the two new pieces were discovered? Yes, in the same general area -- the coast of South Africa and Rodrigues Island, just to the east of Mauritius. Check out this map.

You can't see southern Africa on the map, but trust me, it's just to the west (left) of the area shown. To get from there to Mauritius, you fly more or less due east from Maputo (capital of Moçambique), over Madagascar, passing by Réunion (where the first piece of debris was found) and there you are. Keep going, and the next stop is Rodrigues.

Notice anything else? Ah yes... Make a left turn at Rodrigues, head northeast, and you'd wind up at... wait for it... Diego Garcia! Does that name sound familiar? It's the site of a gigantic US military base. And that, IMHO, is where the answer to the Mystery of MH370 is likeliest to be found.

Returning to yesterday's announcement, the "authorities" and "experts" seem to be stealthily backing away from their position that MH370 slipped into the sea somewhere off the west coast of Australia. Geoff Dell, a specialist in accident investigation at Central Queensland University in Australia, told AP that the latest discovery "shows they're looking in the right ocean — that's about it."

To make matters murkier, the five pieces of debris found so far don't offer much in terms of figuring out what happened to the Boeing 777. There don't appear to be any scorch or burn marks which would indicate an explosion and/or fire. Investigators are examining marine life attached to the debris to see if it could somehow help them narrow down where the plane entered the ocean, but haven't discovered anything useful yet.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is leading the investigation, says one of the pieces found recently is a panel from the main cabin, probably part of a door closet, identified by its decorative laminate. But even this interior piece is unlikely to prove very helpful, said Mr Dell.

It won't, for example, answer the question that some have raised about whether anyone was still at the controls of the plane at the end of its flight, or whether the plane spiraled uncontrollably into the water after running out of fuel. "I wouldn't hang your hat too much on what it says, other than it's got to come out of the airplane somehow and that suggests there was a structural failure in the fuselage that allowed it to get out," he said. "But how, exactly — who knows?"

Piece of MH370 engine cover washes up on South African shore

You don't have to be an aviation expert to know what this is. Any observant person who's sat near the wings of a jet with Rolls Royce engines will have seen the famous "RR" logo on the outside of an engine. To be specific, the picture shows part of an inlet cowling, found on Monday by Neels Kruger, a South African archaeologist walking along the shore of a lagoon near the town of Mossel Bay. That's on South Africa's southern coast, where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet.

Mr Kruger told AP the piece he found is about 70 centimetres by 70 centimetres "with chunks gone from the side." He took photos and sent it to a friend who is a pilot, who in turn passed it on to other pilots, who all quickly became convinced that this was part of a jet engine. Mr Kruger then alerted the South African Civil Aviation Authority who told him to sit tight until further instruction. The Seff Africans contacted Malaysian authorities. Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai issued a statement saying that "Based on early reports, there is a possibility of the piece originating from an inlet cowling of an aircraft engine, but a further examination and analysis are needed to verify whether it belongs to Flight 370." A team is on the way to South Africa to retrieve the debris.

Time now to look once again at the map Walt marked up to accompany "Current thinking on MH370", WWW 31/7/15.

Mossel Bay isn't marked on the map, because back in July we were concentrating on the shores of Madagascar and Réunion. But you can see where Mossel Bay is, at the very left edge of the map, where the land and water meet. You can also see how the Aquinas Current could have carried debris from the northeast, through the Moçambique Channel to the south coast of South Africa.

Note that there is no current which would have carried debris westward from the area which the "experts" have been searching for the remains of MH370. If the inlet cowling found this week proves to have come from MH370, that makes three (3) pieces of the B-777 found on the shores of the southwestern part of the Indian Ocean, far from the search area. (For details on the second finding, earlier this month, see "Credible report of another piece of MH370 found far from search area", WWW 2/3/16.)

The more pieces are discovered far from where they should be (according to the authorities), the more Walt thinks that the mystery of MH370's disappearance can only be solved by full disclosure from the US military of what happened, two years and two weeks ago, somewhere around the American base on Diego Garcia. One day the truth will out!

Credible report of another piece of MH370 found far from search area

About five weeks ago Walt passed on a report of the finding, on a beach in southern Thailand, of what looked like a piece of wreckage from some sort of aircraft. The accompanying pix were far from proof that the debris was from a B-777, the kind of plane operated by Malaysian Airlines as flight MH370, or indeed from an airplane, period. The flotsam could have been part of a surfboard, as some experts suggested at the time.

A further problem with that report was the location of the finding -- a beach in southern Thailand, far from the island of Réunion, in the western Indian Ocean, which was where the only authenticated part from the missing aircraft washed up months earlier. Nothing further was heard about this, so the initial suspicion must be assumed to have been well founded.

Today, however, AP reports that debris that washed up in Moçambique (or Mozambique, using the English spelling) has been tentatively identified as a part from a Boeing 777, according to a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly. (Walt asks again why these reports about a Malaysian aircraft which supposedly disappeared in international airspace/waters always seem to come from unnamed American officials!)

According to AP, photos of the debris that washed up over the weekend appear to show the fixed leading edge of the right-hand tail section of a B-777. People who have handled the part, called a horizontal stabilizer, say it appears to be made of fibreglass composite on the outside, with aluminum honeycombing on the inside, the official said. The part is being transported to Malaysia.

Joao Abreu, Mozambique’s National Director of Civil Aviation, denied that authorities have found part of the missing plane, but Malaysian transport minister Liow Tiong Lai tweeted to confirm the discovery. "Based on early reports, high possibility debris found in Mozambique belongs to a B777," he wrote. "It is yet to be confirmed & verified. dca—malaysia working w Australian counterparts to retrieve the debris." He also urged "everyone to avoid undue speculation as we are not able to conclude that the debris belongs to #mh370 at this time."

A glance at the atlas tells us that Mozambique is on the southeast coast of Africa, to the west of Madagascar which in turn is west of Réunion. As the map in "Current thinking on MH370" (WWW 31/7/15) shows, the Aquinas and Moçambique currents could easily have carried debris to Réunion or Madagascar or Moçambique from the site of a "water landing" somewhere around... wait for it... Diego Garcia, the location of a massive US military base.

The map also shows that Diego Garcia and the possible site of the crash are in the north central part of the Indian Ocean, 1000s of miles from the search area suggested by, errr, the US military. Draw your own conclusions.

MH370 passengers alive and being held captive?

Is it possible... really... that the conspiracy theories surrounding the fate of missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 are right? Could it be... really... that the plane was hijacked and landed in a remote location, to be "repurposed", and that the passengers are alive and being held captive?

That theory sounds a bit far-fetched to me, but it's what some of the families of the missing pax (like those shown here, demonstrating in Beijing some months ago) believe.

In a statement released earlier this week, the families said they offered their forgiveness to whoever is holding the passengers, adding "We believe our loved ones may still be alive and are being held at an undisclosed location for unknown reasons. In the absence of proof to the contrary, we believe it is possible the missing may still be alive. If this is so, we would willingly grant to the perpetrators amnesty in return for the release of the missing."

The "official" story, according to Malaysian, Australian and French "authorities", is that the B-777 flew southwest from its last confirmed position for hours, until it (perhaps) ran out of fuel or (perhaps) was flown very gently and skilfully into the south Indian Ocean by its suicidal pilot(s). French officials claim that a flaperon which washed up on the shores of Réunion -- on the other side of said ocean, some 3000 miles of the area now being searched -- was from the missing aircraft.

In this week's statement, the families of the missing said they don't trust the official account of the incident. "We do not believe any of the series of official statements starting from March 24, 2014, up to and including that of September 3, 2015," they said. "There is no real proof justifying any of these statements." They urged that an investigation into exactly what happened be broadened and extended beyond June, which is when the official search for the missing plane is scheduled to end.

The problem with their request, as I see it, is that no investigation will uncover anything unless and until the relevant governments fess up. Who do I mean? Weellll... perhaps the Chinese, perhaps the Indians, or... more likely... the Americans who operate the gigantic military base on Diego Garcia. If the missing plane in fact landed somewhere on terra firma, I'll bet a dollar to your donut that's where it is.

The more likely explanation is that the Americans shot MH370 out of the sky, perhaps accidentally... perhaps not. See "Current thinking on MH370", WWW 31/7/15. (And please pardon the pun in the headline.)

French experts confirm flaperon is from MH370

What with all the flap about the refugee crisis, the lamestream media didn't devote a lot of space to other stories. One that got buried was a pronouncement by French investigators examining a piece of aircraft debris found on the Indian Ocean island of Réunion in late July. They have concluded "with certainty" that the flaperon -- a wing part -- came from the Malaysia Airlines B-777 that, while operating as flight MH370, disappeared in March of 2013 while flying to Beijing.

So what have we learned? MH370 went down somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Anything else? Errr... that's all.

We do not know where it went down. We do not know how it went down. We do not even know if any of the 239 passengers and crew were still on board when it went down.

Most important, we do not know what caused it to go down. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe not. What some have called "wild conspiracy theories" -- e.g. that MH370 was shot down, accidentally or on purpose, by the US military operating out of Diego Garcia -- have not been disproved.

Further reading: "Current thinking on MH370" (WWW 31/7/15)

More MH370 debris found? Guess where!

There has been a report of the finding of more debris, possibly from an aircraft -- Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 ??? -- which washed ashore on Baa Atoll Fehendhoo and Fulhahdhoo, both in the Southern Maalhosmadulhu Atoll, which is part of... wait for it... the Maldive Islands. Here's a picture of the large piece of flotsam found nearly a month ago.

So what is it? There's a resemblance to the B-777 flaperon found on Réunion late last month. On the other hand, as the South China Morning Post suggests, it could be just a piece of "an unusual make of surfboard".

Inspector Mohammed of the local police has the debris in custody, and "officials" from Malaysia and Australia are on the way to take a closer look [and maybe catch some waves? Ed.]

While it's much too soon to declare a Told-You-So, Walt can't help but be reminded of the investigation by French author Marc Dugain -- see "MH370 - Just fancy that!" (WWW 18/12/14) -- who theorized that there has been a cover-up in the disappearance of the airliner, which could have been shot down by the American military operating out of their huge base at Diego Garcia!

Take a good look at this map. The blue horizontal line running across the middle of the image is the Equator. The olive-coloured island straddling the Equator at the right edge is one of the islands of Indonesia. The last radar "sighting" of MH370 placed the aircraft just about there -- let's call it Point A -- heading northwest.

The "experts" looking for the missing plane claim that it then turned nearly 300 degrees to head southeast to the area in which the search has been concentrated. See the map in "Current thinking on MH370" (WWW 31/7/15).

In the centre of the map above, just southwest of India, are the Maldives -- Point B. Due south of the Maldives is the British Indian Ocean Territory, which includes Diego Garcia, leased by the Brits to the US military. It's marked separately, the dot to the southeast of the island group.

Now look again at the map in "Current thinking on MH370". You will see that the North Equatorial Current of the Indian Ocean runs from Point A to Point B, almost in a straight line. If a plane came down, by accident or by design, anywhere along that line, any debris would most likely wash up on the Maldives first.

That's exactly what M Dugain thought. But his theory, propounded last year, was dismissed by the "experts" because, errr, that would lend credence to the idea that the US military had something to do with the disappearance of MH370 and, for some reason, didn't want their involvement to be known. Imagine that.

Current thinking on MH370

On Wednesday, in "Wreckage of MH370 (?) surfaces" (updated yesterday), Walt expressed doubt -- great doubt -- as to the probability of a piece of debris from Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 having drifted more than 3000 miles westward across the southern Indian Ocean to the island of Réunion, where a B-777 "flaperon" has washed ashore. (Yes, Walt has now learned that a "flaperon" is a part of the trailing edge of an aircraft's wing.)

Turns out, now, that the party line being put out by the Australian and Malaysian "authorities" responsible for the search doesn't say that. They deny the suggestion made by Walt [and others! Ed.] that they've been looking in the wrong place, off the coast of western Australia. No, they say, the debris (the flaperon and possibly a beat-up suitcase) could have drifted considerably farther, in a counter-clockwise fashion north following the Western Australia current, then west along the South Equatorial current, then southwest with the Moçambique (Mozambique) current to La Réunion. Do I have to draw you a picture? Voilà!

Yes, I've taken a map of the Indian Ocean and drawn on the currents named and a couple of others. No, I didn't make those up. The source for the location and direction of the warm (red), cold (blue), and luke-warm (I guess, in black) currents is "Currents and Tides", on the Marinebio website.

The spokesthingies for the governments involved are certainly correct in saying that the currents of the southern Indian Ocean move counter-clockwise. And yes, it's possible that if a plane fell into the sea -- "made a water landing", as the airlines would say -- in the search area (highlighted in yellow), pieces of debris could have gone all the way around from, say, 4 o'clock, counter-clockwise to 9 o'clock.

What the "authorities" aren't saying is that it's even more possible that the plane came down -- accidentally or on purpose -- closer to 12 o'clock, which I have starred in red because it's the location of Diego Garcia, site of a huge US military (air and naval) base.

From Diego Garcia, the Americans control virtually the entire Indian Ocean and the airspace above it. Suppose for a minute that a paranoid US radar operator and/or a trigger-happy US pilot mistook MH370 for an enemy aircraft and shot it down. Would the Pentagon (and the Prez) admit and say, "Gee, we're really sorry but you have to understand that we're protecting the world from terrorism and there's bound to be a bit of collateral damage, every now and then?" Walt thinks not.

Further reading: In "MH370 - Just fancy that!" (18/12/14), Walt reports on the theory of French author Marc Dugain -- a former CEO of Proteus Airlines -- that there has been a cover-up in the disappearance of the airliner, which could have been hacked and then shot down by the Americans! IMHO, the finding of debris on the shore of La Réunion adds strength to M. Dugain's version of what happened, the "official" version notwithstanding.

UPDATED: Wreckage of MH370 (?) surfaces

Walt found it hard to believe that no trace of the Boeing 777 being flown by Malaysian Airlines as flight MH370, which vanished in March of 2014, would ever be found. Regular readers of WWW will remember that Walt maintained from the get-go that searchers were looking in the wrong place, and that if they really wanted to know where to look, they should ask the US military.

Before saying "I told you so", I'll summarize today's news, as reported by the BBC. Then I'll ask a couple of pertinent questions.

La Réunion is a small island in the Indian Ocean, located just to the east of Madagascar. It is technically a part of France, a relic of the French Empire. So, when something that looked like part of an airplane wing washed up on its shores, it was a matter for the local gendarmerie.

Experts, including at least one American, were called right sharpish, and are conducting tests to ascertain whether the single piece of debris was in fact a wing component from a 777. There have been a number of crashes much closer to the island than the sport west of Malaysia where MH370 was last "seen" on radar.

Malaysia is sending a team to investigate the debris discovered today. Australian investigators, who are leading the hunt, are also reported to be in touch with manufacturers over the find. However, an anonymous US official told Associated Press that investigators had a "high degree of confidence" that the part was a "flaperon" unique to a Boeing 777 wing.

BBC News also quotes an aviation expert, Xavier Tytelman, as saying it presented "incredible similarities" to a Boeing 777 flaperon. [Perhaps Agent 17 could e-mail us an explanation of what a "flaperon" is. "Ailerons" we've heard of, but "flaperons"? Errr, no.]

French experts, however, say it is too early to tell. An anonymous member of the French Air Force told CNN it was "way too soon" to say if it was from the missing flight. BBC News points out that La Réunion is over 3700 miles west of the search area, in the southeastern quadrant of the Indian Ocean, off the western coast of Australia.

That's way off, a long way off indeed. Have a look at this map, which shows the Indian Ocean and its currents.

Madagascar is the large island east of Africa. La Réunion is just to the east of Madagascar, at the tip of the long red arrow extending southwest from the middle of the Indian Ocean. Australia... well, you know which landmass is Australia, right? The area which was being searched for the remains of MH370 is close to the black arrow pointing northeast, next to the number 14. Diego Garcia, site of a huge US military base, is located about at the foot of the "A" in "INDIAN". So let me ask...

* Would debris found on Réunion more likely have floated there from the search area or from somewhere in the centre of the Indian Ocean? Note the direction of the currents represented by the black and red arrows.

* Why were American "experts" called in by the French at the first moment? The search was being carried out mainly by the Australians and Malaysians.

* Who told the searchers to look in the location represented by "14", to the exclusion of the northeast and central parts of the Indian Ocean, in spite of considerable doubt expressed by Walt [and others! Ed.] as to why MH370 would have made a turn of some 270 degrees away from its last observed course?

To whom should these questions be addressed? Walt suggests... again... asking the US military, particularly those authorities responsible for operations at the US base on Diego Garcia. Of course the buck doesn't stop at the Pentagon. If no answers are forthcoming from that quarter, perhaps the Republican presidential candidate [Donald who? Ed.] could ask Hellery Clinton.

Previously on WWW: "MH370 - Just fancy that!" (18/12/14) and "Search for MH370 being quietly scaled down" (3/6/15)

"Fancy that!" Dept: Dawn is breaking to the east of Walt's cabin in the pines. CBC News has an update titled "MH370 search: Indian Ocean currents could have deposited debris on Réunion Island, experts say". Perhaps some of the experts have read this post. Erik van Sebille, an oceanographer at Imperial College London, is quoted as saying that, if the debris on Reunion was indeed from MH370, "this westward drift from near Australia all the way across the Indian Ocean can really only happen if the plane went into the water relatively close to the equator."

Or perhaps not. All that Charitha Pattiaratchi, Professor of Coastal Oceanography at the University of Western Australia, could add is that the point of origin of the debris "will definitely be in the Southern Hemisphere." Mind you, "the southern Hemisphere" could include the island of St. Helena and the Andes mountains, so no matter where the decide the "flaperon" came from, the good doctor will be proven right! Brilliant!

Search for MH370 being quietly scaled down

Walt doesn't have much time for conspiracy theories. I'm not a "birther". I don't believe Roosevelt knew about Pearl Harbor in advance. And I do believe the Americans really did land on the moon. (I saw it on TV so it must be so!) However, there are conspiracies to keep us from knowing the truth about certain things, such as the Third Secret of Fatima, which remains hidden deep in the archives of the Vatican. And then there's the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.

If you haven't heard anything about the search for the plane -- or at least pieces of it -- that's because the US military doesn't want you to hear about it, and the Australian government, which is organizing the search in waters to the southwest of that continent is going along with their good friends and allies. Millions of dollars are being spent -- more than Australia could afford on its own -- looking for a needle in a haystack. And they're looking in the wrong haystack! Walt says it's deliberate!

Agence France Presse reports that Australian officials said today that the hunt for MH370 will not be expanded beyond its current search area "unless there are specific new leads". Back in April, 13 months after the plane vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, it was announced that the search zone would double in size, to cover 46,300 square miles in a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean. But now the Australian-led Joint Agency Coordination Centere says "In the absence of credible new information that leads to the identification of a specific location of the aircraft, governments have agreed that there will be no further expansion of the search area."

What makes the JACC think they're going to find anything way out there, far off Australia's west coast? The zone was supposedly determined by analyzing data from satellite signals which indicated the plane went down in the Indian Ocean after mysteriously diverting. To be in the area being searched, it would have had to be off its planned course by about 140 degrees. It would also have had to turned some 50 or 60 degrees to the southwest from the course it was on when last observed by Malaysian radar!

When last "seen", the plane was near the west coast of Malaysia, heading west-northwest (WNW), not southwest (SW). Seems to me it would make more sense to follow the last observed heading, which would have taken the plane in the general directin of the Bay of Bengal, Sri Lanka and the southern tip of India. That area is watched closely by the US military from its huge base on Diego Garcia, a flyspeck in the middle of the Indian Ocean leased to the US by the Brits.

The conspiracy theory which Walt finds least plausible is that the Americans somehow hijacked MH370 by remote control, and flew it to Diego Garcia to be "repurposed" for use in the Middle East. A similar theory says the hijackers were Chinese -- as were most of the pax on board -- and flew it to somewhere in southeast Asia or western China.

Walt thinks the more likely explanation is that a USAF or US Navy fighter intercepted MH370 when their radar tracked it way off course, and shot it down either deliberately or "by accident". That would be consistent with US military SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) -- shoot first and ask questions (such as identity) later. Covering up such mistakes in hopes that they will be forgotten is also SOP.

Walt is not alone in giving credence to this explanation. See "MH370 - Just fancy that!", posted here just before Christmas 2014, and "MH370 officially 'an accident'; take the money and STFU", a month later.

So... if the JACC wants a lead, there it is. In case they don't understand the message, Walt will put it in three words: Ask the Americans!