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???

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.

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!

"Experts" admit looking in the wrong place for MH370

Looks like this second-last week of 2016 is going to be the biggest newsweek -- not to be confused with the useless magazine of the same name -- of the year. It's only Tuesday and so far we've got four Islamic terrorist attacks, the election of Donald Trump by the Electoral College [not really news. Ed.] and now... wait for it... confirmation of what Walt has been saying for well over a year: The "experts" conducting the search for Malaysian Airlines MH370 have been looking in the wrong place!

That's right, folks. You read it here as early as 18 December 2014 ("Just fancy that!"), and even before! (Click here to see all of Walt's posts on MH370.) For two years, in spite of questions raised by my goodself and numerous other sceptics, the Australian-led search team have been looking for debris from the missing B-777 in a remote patch of the Indian Ocean west of Australia. Today, at last, the sleuths made what was surely a painful admission: they've probably been looking in the wrong place. Probably? Hah! Definitely is the correct word. And I have no hesitation in saying: I told you so!

The latest analysis by a team of international investigators concluded the vanished aircraft is "highly unlikely" to be in the current search zone and may instead be in a region farther north. Since the plane disappeared in March 2014, the "experts" have analyzed a series of exchanges between the aircraft and a satellite to estimate a probable crash site somewhere in a vast arc of ocean in the southeastern part of the Indian Ocean. A deep-sea search of a tens of thousands of square miles of water along the arc came up empty.

To make matters worse, as Walt told you last May ("MH370: 5 pieces now, all in 'the wrong place'"), pieces of debris kept turning up on shores at the western end of the Indian Ocean, in such places as Madagascar, Réunion, Mozambique and South Africa. To elucidate the fuzzification, the "experts" went back over the satellite data and did a drift analysis of the (by now) more than 20 items of debris likely to have come from the plane. The analysis, based on where the items washed up and when, suggested the debris originated somewhere "farther north".

The report identifies a 25,000 square kilometre area to the north of the current search zone as the most likely place where MH370 hit the water, the report said. The investigators concluded with "a high degree of confidence" that the plane is not in the current search area, and that the new area needs to be searched.

So will they extend the search to that area, beyond the planned completion date of 31 December? Errr, no. Australia’s transport minister, Darren Chester, who has to wear this one, suggested the analysis wasn't specific enough to justify continuing the hunt. In other words: show us where it is, and we'll have a look. Besides, there's no more money. So that's it, then. MH370 and over 200 pax and crew can rest undisturbed in their watery grave. Let's move on to other things that are less likely to prove embarrassing for all concerned.

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"!

VIDEO: Canuck expert says MH370 deliberately flown into ocean

Just as the search for MH370 is about to be wound down -- December 31st is the ABF closing date -- a new piece of evidence emerges to support the theory of Larry Vance, a Canadian aviation expert, that the disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines plane in March of 2014 was no accident.

Walt has asked before -- click here for a complete list of WWW posts on "MH370" -- why the FBI is involved in the search for answers to the riddle, but involved they are. This week CNN reported that an FBI forensic examination shows the pilot of MH370 conducted a flight simulation on his home computer that closely matched the suspected route of the missing Boeing 777 in the southern Indian Ocean, according to a Malaysian government document obtained by New York magazine.

The confidential document summarizes Malaysia's police investigation into Zaharie Ahmad Shah, the captain of the plane that has been missing for more than two years. Mr Shah was a Muslim, by the way. Just thought I'd throw that in. Why would an Islamic extremist commit suicide just to kill 238 innocent people? Oh, wait...

According to the magazine, citing the document, the FBI analyzed hard drives from a flight simulator Mr Shah had built using Microsoft Flight Simulator X software. The FBI was able to recover data points from a simulated flight made less than a month before the plane vanished that pointed to the southern Indian Ocean, which is where the Americans and other "authorities" have claimed the plane went down. Why they haven't been able to find it remains a mystery.

Larry Vance, the Canuck expert, doesn't say anything about terrorism, nor does he mention the new flight simulator evidence. All he says is that some of the pieces of debris found on Réunion and other shores of the western part of the Indian Ocean had a specific type of erosion on them, which leads him to believe the plane was deliberately landed in the sea.

Speaking to Canada's Global News via Skype from his home in Ottawa, he said "I believe that somebody intended to take the airplane to someplace out in the ocean, and to land it on the ocean in a place where it was the least likely to be found." He added that the plane was "landed in such a way that it would sink to the bottom without any -- or very much -- wreckage appearing at the surface." Could be. As Mr Vance says, the mystery is why!

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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?"

Wreckage on shores of WESTERN Indian Ocean IS from MH370

This is the third time I've posted a map of the Indian Ocean, to which I've added arrows showing the direction of key ocean currents, and a red star showing the location of the US military base at Diego Garcia. Look at this as you read my list of the three pieces of aircraft wreckage which have washed up on the shores of Réunion, Mozambique and South Africa. Australian authorities have now confirmed that the second piece, recovered earlier this month, is "highly likely" to have come from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which disappeared just over two years ago.

To summarize... MH370 was carrying 239 pax and crew when it vanished shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia, just above centre right on the map) bound for Beijing on 8 March 2014. When last "observed" by radar, it was heading to the northwest, roughly in the direction of the West Equatorial current, which I've drawn on in black.

For reasons about which we can only speculate, the Australian authorities who took charge of the search thought that the plane then made a turn of roughly 180 degrees, flying on southeasterly course for as long as five hours before plunging into the ocean somewhere off the west coast of Australia, which is where they've been searching ever since.

Even though the search area has been doubled from 60,000 square kilometres (as shown) to 120,000 sq.km., they've found... wait for it... nil, nada, bupkis... nothing at all.

Meanwhile... in July of 2015 a piece of aircraft wreckage was found on the island of Réunion. You'll find it on the other side of the map, in the western part of the Indian Ocean, 1000 of kilometres from the search area. The wreckage turned out to be a flaperon, which French experts confirmed in September came from the ill-fated B-777.

Fast forward to the first week of this month, when a US adventurer who was carrying out his own independent search for MH370 found a white, metre-long chunk of metal off the coast of Mozambique. That's in the southeastern part of Africa, at the west end of the Indian Ocean. The Aquinas Current flows in a southerly direction between the island of Madagascar and the African mainland. Today, Reuters reports that a Malaysian government investigation team has found that "both pieces of debris" [sic] are consistent with panels from a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 aircraft.

Reuters quotes Australia's minister for infrastructure and transport, Darren Chester, as saying that "The analysis has concluded the debris is almost certainly from MH370. That such debris has been found on the east coast of Africa is consistent with drift modelling...and further affirms our search efforts in the southern Indian Ocean."

Excuse me for doubting, but it seems to me equally if not more plausible that the wreckage found along the paths of the Aquinas and Moçambique Currents -- see map!!! -- drifted south from from the site of a "water landing" somewhere in the northwest sector of the Indian Ocean. Let's say somewhere around, oh, Diego Garcia!

But wait (as Vince Offer would say), there's more! Just yesterday we learned that yet another piece of debris -- an inlet cowling from a Rolls Royce jet engine -- had been found. Guess where? Off the coast of Australia? Errr, no. See "Piece of MH370 engine cover washes up on South African shore". A Malaysian team is en route to Seff Africa to retrieve this latest find. Walt waits with bated breath to hear what Mr. Chester will say if this piece too turns out to belong to MH370.

What investigators really need to find is the main underwater wreckage, which would hold the plane's "black boxes" (flight data recorders). These should reveal details related to the plane's controls, including whether aircraft systems that might have helped track the plane were deliberately turned off, as some investigators believe. Walt suggests (once again) that the investigators ask the US military for a little help. They would surely lend a hand, wouldn't they... unless of course they had something to hide.

Further reading: Walt presented this map for the first time in "Current thinking on MH370", 31/7/15. I'll wait until the Americans fess up before saying I told you so.

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.

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!

MH370 officially "an accident"; take the money and STFU

"We officially declare Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 an accident... and that all 239 of the passengers and crew onboard MH370 are presumed to have lost their lives." That's the party line, given out yesterday by Azharuddin Abdul Raham, Director-General of Malaysia's Department of Civil Aviation.

That clears the way for the airline to pay compensation to the next-of-kin of the 239 people who went down with the plane. Mr. Azharuddin said the airline would start the compensation process immediately. Whether the payoff money would come from the airline or its insurers would not made clear, raising the question (in Walt's mind) of whether the insurers accept the official explanation.

Meanwhile -- again according to Mr. Azharuddin -- the search for the plane goes on. You haven't heard much about that since the search, in the southeastern quadrant of the Indian Ocean, 1000s of miles off the airliner's scheduled route, has yet to turn up Clue One.

Why the Boeing 777 should have veered so far off course is also said to be the subject of an international investigation. And -- get this -- Mr. Azharuddin says that Malaysia is also conducting a criminal investigation!

A criminal investigation? Really? Into what, if the disappearance of MH370 was indeed an accident? Could we have some details please? Without any bodies or even a shred of the supposed MH370 wreckage, what clues have the Malaysian investigators uncovered? Who are they talking to? Have they asked the US military what they know? Have they visited the US military base at Diego Garcia?

Why do I ask those questions? Because I believe, as do many aviation experts, that MH370 was flying west-northwest, towards Diego Garcia, after it was last "seen" by radar, and either crashed or was shot down somewhere in the vicinity of the Maldives. See "MH370 - Just fancy that!", posted on WWW just before Christmas.

Until the Malaysian government (or anyone else) produces at least a scintilla of evidence that MH370 flew 1000s of miles in the opposite direction before plunging into the briny depths, I take Mr. Azharuddin's statement as one of policy -- "politics" is a better word -- not of fact.

As for the compensation to be paid to the victims' families, I call it hush money. Take the money and stop asking questions!

Aussie officials now say maybe MH370 WAS hijacked

When last we heard from the geniuses spearheading the investigation into the disappearance of Malaysian airlines flight MH370, they weren't buy into suggestions by Walt (and others) that the plane might have been hijacked by persons unknown and flown to a place unknown (but really, Diego Garcia).

Instead, the official line as of two weeks ago was that everyone on board somehow fell asleep, and the plane flew by itself into a "water landing" in the far southern reaches of the Indian Ocean -- a long way from Diego Garcia -- where it would likely be found, errr, sometime in the future. This theory was based on an educated guess by Inmarsat, with which the Australian Transport Safety Board more or less agreed.

Today, in a stunning 179-degree turn, the ATSB issued a new report by the air crash investigators which found the jumbo jet suffered a mysterious power outage after taking off from Kuala Lumpur.
Power supplying equipment on board missing flight MH370 may have been tampered with, they said. Cutting the power could have rendered the flight invisible to radar, including that operated by Inmarsat, which makes the Inmarsat theory a little less than sound, to say the least.

Aviation experts have now concluded the power cut was a deliberate act by somebody "messing about" in the cockpit of the Boeing 777. No shit, Sherlock!

How did they figure out that the power had been cut? Because the plane made unexpected contact with a satellite about 90 minutes after it took off on March 8th -- after MH370 had turned off course from Beijing, but before it turned south toward the Southern Indian Ocean. Inmarsat now professes bafflement. Their spokesthingy told the meedja, "We cannot explain it. It's another little mystery." A master of understatement, that man!

Peter Marosszeky, of the University of Wooloomaloo [New South Wales, surely! Ed.] opined that switching off the power must have been an attempt to hijack the plane. "It would have to be a deliberate act of turning power off on certain systems on the aeroplane," he said. "The aircraft has so many backup systems. Any form of power interruption is always backed up by another system. "The person doing it would have to know what they are doing. It would have to be a deliberate act to hijack or sabotage the aircraft."

Air safety expert David Gleave, of Loughborough University [Where dat? Ed.], agreed, saying it could have been "deliberate". He told The Telegraph [Oh. UK, then. Ed.] that "A person could be messing around in the cockpit which would lead to a power interruption."It could be a deliberate act to switch off both engines for some time. By messing about within the cockpit you could switch off the power temporarily and switch it on again when you need the other systems to fly the aeroplane." See Malaysia Airline MH370: 9/11-style terror allegations resurface in case of lost plane.

Now who would have done something like that? Islamic extremists, like al-Qaeda? Tibetans or Uighurs trying to strike a blow for freedom from China? Or? Well, let us not jump to conclusions. Look in Diego Garcia!

Latest on MH370: Inmarsat says search was off target; Canadian ex-pilot blames Malaysian authorities for "bungled inquiry", suggests ulterior motive

Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 vanished on March 8th. Since then, we have learned very little about where it went and what happened to it. Speculation abounds. What we know for sure is that it never arrived at its destination. That's all.

The most probable answer to the question of what happened to MH370 is that it crashed. But where? The official line is that it crashed into the sea -- the Indian Ocean -- but a "premature landing" in the jungles of Malaysia, Thailand, Burma or Yunnan (the southwestern cannot be ruled out. So thick is the canopy of treetops in such places that it's nigh well impossible to see from the air anything more than a blanket of foliage.

The search at sea has concentrated on a small part of the southeastern Indian Ocean off the coast of Perth, Australia. Hopes were raised when "pings" were heard such as might be generated by the aircraft's black boxes. A thorough search by the Bluefin robot sub found nothing, nothing.

Now Inmarsat, the UK satellite company, has told the BBC that the searchers have been looking in the wrong place! Its scientists think the plane more likely crashed in a part of the ocean further to the southwest.

Inmarsat's communications with the aircraft are seen as better clues to the whereabouts of the lost flight than the radar data so far provided by Malaysian or other authorities. The hunt for the lost jet is currently taking a short break while ships map the Indian Ocean floor. When the search resumes, the Inmarsat "hotspot" will be a key focus.

But so too will a number of areas being fed into the investigation by other groups. Australian authorities are expected to announce where these are shortly. Walt is waiting to see if his suggestion that Diego Garcia be looked at will at last be heard. If not, well, I can only cast the pearls...

If they don't listen to Walt, perhaps the "authorities" will have some regard to the opinions of Christopher Goodfellow, a retired businessman and former pilot who lives in Florida. He is a graduate of McGill and Cornell universities and a former director of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority. In ‘A bungled inquiry’: 100 days after MH370 went missing it is clear Malaysia officials hiding information he blames Malaysian officials for mishandling the investigation and for hiding vital information. [You seem to have read the headline thoroughly. Ed.]

Mr. Goodfellow isn't big on the conspiracy theories, preferring to think that the loss of the aeroplane might have been the result of an accident. He wrote about this possibility before, "as a pilot with some knowledge of the issues defending two fellow pilots who were being much maligned and who could not defend themselves."

What is wanted, he continues, is full disclosure by the owners of Malaysian Airlines -- the Malaysian government holds a majority stake --of information about possible causes of such an accident. Mr. Goodfellow would like to know about the cargo MH370 might have been carrying. Walt has seen suggestions ranging from a large quantity of gold -- good reason for a hijacking -- to crates of mangosteens -- not such a good reason.

And what about failure to properly maintain the aircraft or correct deficiencies which caused at least one crash previously? Mr. Goodfellow refers to procedures by which aircraft manufacturers and regulators handle design flaws and other problems revealed by the operation of airliners. Service Bulletins issued by manufacturers, and Airworthiness Directives issued by regulators keep the industry informed.

The Boeing 777 has had its share of such notices. Two in particular are relevant to MH370: one involving a short-circuit in the hose feeding emergency oxygen to the crew, and one warning of possible rupturing of the aircraft pressure vessel due to the mounting of a satellite communications antenna.

The former was responsible for a well-documented accident (fortunately on the ground at Cairo) involving an Egyptair 777. The resultant fire destroyed the cabin and burned a hole through the plane, and would have been catastrophic if it had occurred in mid-air. The satellite antenna issue could also be fatal, tearing the aircraft’s skin and resulting in rapid depressurisation. It is time, Mr. Goodfellow says, for the Malaysian authorities to show that checks and modifications regarding these issues were complied with.

Walt agrees. And if the Malaysian authorities produce logs and records and reports showing that the plane was in tiptop condition, and carrying no dangerous cargo, so much the better, for such disclosure could only reinforce the theory that MH370 was hijacked and taken to parts unknown by ___________ ... you fill in the blank.

FOLLOW-UP - If you're following all the twists and turns in the MH370 saga, you must read "Aussie officials now say maybe MH370 WAS hijacked" (June 30th)

MH370: Searching "pings" area turns up nothing. Surprised?

The search for the Malaysian Airlines B-777 operating on flight MH370, which vanished without a trace on March 8th, hasn't received a lot of media attention lately. The reason? Because there hasn't been anything to tell. Until today.

A robot submarine was searching the floor of the Indian Ocean west of Perth, Australia, in an area where acoustic signals thought linked to the missing plane's black box had been detected. Today, Australian officials in charge of the search said that the little sub had found nothing. Rien. Nada. No wreckage, no debris, no bodies -- nothing...at...all.

Bluefin-21 swept over 850 square kilometres of the seabed, but came up empty. The Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre (JACC) stated, "Bluefin-21 completed its last mission searching the remaining areas in the vicinity of the acoustic signals detected in early April by the towed pinger locator. The data collected on yesterday's mission has been analysed. As a result, the JACC can advise that no signs of aircraft debris have been found by the autonomous underwater vehicle since it joined the search effort.

"The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has advised that the search in the vicinity of the acoustic detections can now be considered complete," the statement continued, "and in its professional judgement, the area can now be discounted as the final resting place of MH370."

That's hardly surprising, since (IWHO) [In Walt's Humble Opinion. Ed.] they're looking in the wrong place! Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said the search had been based on "the best information available at the time". [Did he say, "Truss me?" Ed.

Evidently the JACC failed to read WWW, wherein I stated quite clearly (as always) that the place to look was in the northern part of the Indian Ocean, west of the Kra Isthmus -- somewhere between the Malaysian peninsula and Diego Garcia. See:
"MH370: 1 + 3 = ??? Walt puts two possibilities together"
"For the second time: Diego Garcia is a key piece of the MH370 puzzle"
"MH370: Suppose it was a test..."

You think this is just another crackpot conspiracy theory? You think there's no reason to suspect the US military? Think about this. The governments and JACC officials doing most of the talking about the mysterious disappearance of MH370 have been Australian and Malaysian. Americans have been all but invisible. Today, however, Michael Dean, the US Navy's deputy director of ocean engineering, told CNN (according to a BBC report) that the acoustic signals probably came from some man-made source other than the aircraft's black boxes.

"Our best theory at this point is that [the pings were] likely some sound produced by the ship...or within the electronics of the towed pinger locator," was how he explained it. "Always your fear any time you put electronic equipment in the water is that if any water gets in and grounds or shorts something out, that you could start producing sound." In other words, the electronic search device might well have been listening to itself!

Why, then, did the US Navy describe Dean's comments as "speculative and premature"? Did Dean know all along that looking for the wreckage in the area where the pings were heard was pointless? Did the US Navy mean that Dean should STFU? What does the US Navy know that the JACC should know, but apparently doesn't? Stay tuned.

Latest developments in the MH370 mystery

Let's be honest -- as Walt and the victims' families have been asking for weeks now -- about the search. Scores of planes and ships have been all over the southeastern part of the Indian Ocean, looking for "things" shown in several satellite images. So far they have found nothing -- rien, nada -- except garbage. Because it's our human nature to foul our own environment, the seas are full of trash, and that's what's going to turn up in the searchers' nets... especially if they're looking in the wrong place.

The lamestream media are reporting that dozens of Chinese relatives of passengers on Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 have descended on Kuala Lumpur early this morning. Why are they there? To demand proof from Malaysian authorities that the aircraft -- missing for more than three weeks -- crashed in the Indian Ocean. "Tell us the truth; show us the proof!" they cry, not unreasonably.

Walt believes the truth is out there. [Where did you get that line? Ed.] But not where the searchers are looking. The conspiracy theorists are coming out in full force now with explanations ranging from hijacking by Uighurs to abduction by aliens. Echoes of 9/11 and the Kennedy assassination are reverberating around the blogosphere.

Regular readers will know that Walt himself has thrown out some suggestions. See "MH370: Three guesses from Walt", "Where is MH370?" and "MH370: 1 + 3 = ??? Walt puts two possibilities together".

Lest you think I'm way out to lunch on the Diego Garcia connection -- "For the second time: Diego Garcia is a key piece of the MH370 puzzle" -- let me tell you that DG (as we'll call it) has been mentioned as a possibility in "Flight MH370 Found? Not Quite – Now the Real Whitewash Begins" and "Flight MH370 Is At Diego Garcia – Here’s The Proof". Google "Diego Garcia MH370" and you'll come up with at least half a dozen more pieces along the same lines. (I thought of it all by myself though!)

If the Chinese want the truth, they're asking the wrong people. The Malaysian authorities either don't know, or are saying what they're told to say by... wait for it... the US military. Information (or disinformation) has been coming from China, France, and Australia, as well as Malaysia, a staunch American ally.

But what have we heard from the country with the world's biggest network of satellites, military bases and other means to find out what really happened to MH370? Nothing -- rien, nada -- except garbage. I refer to the change of direction by the USS Kidd, which I queried on March 19th!

The Kidd had been searching to the north, more or less along the line between Malaysia and Diego Garcia, then suddenly did a 180 to the search area southwest of Perth. Was that done to throw others off the scent? Would the US Navy mislead us? Is the Pope Catholic? [There's some doubt about the last two questions. Ed.]

If the US military had nothing to do with the disappearance of MH370, why has nothing -- rien, nada -- been said by way of denial? Have the Prez and Mr. Skerry really been so preoccupied with the Ukraine that they haven't been able to comment? Walt has written to the White House requesting an explanation, but so far has received no reply.

Where is MH370?

On Friday, Walt posted three guesses as to what happened to Malaysian Airlines flight 370, which remains very much missing.

Wikipedia tells us [You can look it up. Ed.] - Diego Garcia is a tropical, footprint-shaped coral atoll located south of the equator in the central Indian Ocean. It is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT).

The United States Navy operates Naval Support Facility (NSF) Diego Garcia, a large naval ship and submarine support base, military air base [with a very long runway! Walt], communications and space-tracking facility, and an anchorage for pre-positioned military supplies for regional operations aboard Military Sealift Command ships in the lagoon.