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.]

VIDEO: The mystery of Malaysian Airlines MH370 (simulation)

This month has been full of interruptions and distractions, which caused me to miss a couple of dates and events about which I wanted to say something. One such was the sixth anniversary of the disappearance and presumed crash, on 8 March 2014, of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370. I have written about or referred to the mystery of what happened to MH370 in no fewer than 45 posts. Click here to see them all, in reverse chronological order.

Today, instead of repeating myself, I'm reposting a simulation video made by Allec Joshua Ibaya, a Filipino aviation buff, posted to YouTube on 8 April 2017. Mr Ibaya doesn't offer any theories about what happened to the ill-fated airliner, but does a good job of depicting what was known at the time he made the video. Nothing of any consequence has become known since.

WARNING: This video is an example of what some people call "disaster porn", and may be disturbing to some viewers. If you think might be one of the easily affected, you know what to do. Don't watch!

Not only "bad guys" shoot down commercial airliners

Agent 3 e-mail to chastise me for mentioning in my coda to yesterday's piece on the apparent shooting down of Ukrainian International Airlines flight PS752 by an Iranian missile, only the downing of Korean Airlines KAL007 by Soviet air forces. Agent 3 reminds me of two even worse "incidents", and possibly a third.

How quickly we forget [YOU forgot! Ed.] the crash of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, which crashed in July of 2017 near the border of Russia and Ukraine. The B777 -- a bigger plane than the B737-800 -- was supposedly flying at 10,000 metres (33,000 feet), at which altitude it could only have been hit by a large and sophisticated surface-to-air missile, probably the same Russian-built Tor-M1 missile system used by the Iranian military. See "Russian Missile System Suspected of Bringing Down Ukraine Airliner: Short Range, Fast and Deadly", Moscow Times, 10/1/20.

Who did that? The government of Vladimir Putin is keeping shtum, but the prime suspects were and remain the Ukrainian rebels, backed by Russia, trying to separate the eastern Ukraine from the motherland. Whoever did the dirty deed must surely have made a horrible mistake, firing on a civilian airliner. Right?

That tragedy was preceded, nine years earlier, by the shooting down of Iran Air flight IR655. On 3 July 1988 the Airbus A300 was en route from Tehran to Dubai when it was hit by an SM-2MR surface-to-air missile fired from... wait for it... USS Vincennes, a guided-missile cruiser of the United States Navy. The aircraft was destroyed and all 290 pax and crew were killed.

The large jet was hit while flying over Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, along the flight's usual route, shortly after departing Bandar Abbas International Airport, the flight's stopover location. The Vincennes had entered Iranian territory after one of its helicopters drew warning fire from Iranian speedboats operating within Iranian territorial limits. According to the American government, the Vincennes crew mistook the Airbus for an F-14 Tomcat, an American-made jet fighter that had been part of the Iranian Air Force inventory since the 1970s. Rather a glaring error.

The US Navy claimed the Vincennes made ten attempts to contact the aircraft on both military and civilian radio frequencies, but received no response. The Iranian government said the cruiser negligently shot down the aircraft, which was transmitting IFF squawks in Mode III, a signal that identified it as a civilian aircraft, and not Mode II as used by Iranian military aircraft.

The event generated a great deal of criticism of the Paranoid States of America, and particularly Vincennes captain William C. Rogers III, for "overly aggressive behaviour in a tense and dangerous environment." Walt expects to hear phrases like that a lot, in the aftermath of this week's tragedy. In the days immediately following the incident, President Ronald Reagan issued a written diplomatic note to the Iranian government, expressing deep regret. Walt expects a similar note to be issued by the mad mullahs of the Iranian government, any minute now.

To round out this list, let's not forget Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, a B777 which vanished into thin air... or deep water... five years ago this coming March, with 239 souls aboard, now presumed dead. The Malaysian government declared the loss an accident, but no-one has yet been able to say for sure what happened to the large airliner. I continue to believe that the plane was shot down by either Indian or (more likely) American forces operating from the US military base on Diego Suarez. That would have been an accident... of course.

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.

MH370: "Third party interference" (= hijacking?) can't be ruled out

Walt is still following the investigation into what happened to Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared somewhere over -- or into -- the Indian Ocean on 8 March 2014. Today, investigators released yet another report on their findings, which so far have amounted to, errr, just a tad more than nothing. Today's report says the controls of the Boeing 777 were likely "deliberately manipulated" to take it off course, but they were not able to determine who was responsible.

Thus the aviation experts reached no conclusion about what happened aboard the plane that vanished with 239 people on board en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, leaving one of the world's greatest aviation mysteries unsolved. Kok Soo Chon, head of the safety investigation team, told the meeja "The answer can only be conclusive if the wreckage is found."

Walt suggests (again) that the wreckage won't be found until hunters stop looking in the southeastern part of the Indian Ocean (off the west coast of Australia) and start looking in the western part. The bits of debris found to date have all been located on the shores of southern Africa and nearby islands. See "New search for MH370 - Walt's advice on how to get answers", WWW 6/1/18.

Experts believe someone may have deliberately switched off MH370's transponder before diverting it over the Indian Ocean. There has been speculation that either the pilot or the co-pilot did that, and then flew the aircraft into the sea in an act of murder suicide. Mr Kok-up thinks not. "We are not of the opinion it could have been an event committed by the pilots," he said, but added they were not ruling out any possibility since the in-air turn back was done manually and the systems in the plane were also manually turned off.

Who else might have done it, then? Said Mr Kok, “We cannot exclude that there was an unlawful interference by a third party." Perhaps he and his colleagues have read "Could MH370 have been hacked? It's possible!", WWW 12/6/18. If not, they should!

UPDATE ADDED 31/7/18: Fox News reports that Malaysia's civil aviation chief resigned today, taking responsibility for shortcomings during the disappearance of MH370. Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said in a statement the report referred to above showed failures by Kuala Lumpur air traffic control to comply with standard procedures.

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!

"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"!

Investigators not interested in picking up more MH370 debris

Things other than the decline and fall of Hellery Clinton are transpiring elsewhere in the world. On the southeastern coast of Madagascar, for instance, where Blaine Gibson, the debris hunter who found parts of the Boeing 777 which flew as Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 has found five (5) new pieces.

Two fragments appear 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, where debris had already been found. 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, previous posted on 31/7/15 in "Current thinking on MH370".

I'm putting this up again to underscore my 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 search area off the western coast of Australia, 1000s of miles away.

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 -- is the only one searching there.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), which is supposed to be leading the investigation, couldn't be bothered to come and get the pieces, so Mr Gibson has sent them to Australia at his own expense. What does the ATSB think of the latest discoveries? Will they be undertaking a new search after they finish up the current one [Watch it! Ed.] in December? Answer comes there none.

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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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?"

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.

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!