10 years on and Malaysian Flight 370 still has to be solved

[Anthea]

MH370 NEW THEORY CLAIMS

Was carrying an extra passenger who likely took control of the cockpit

Malaysian Airlines jet vanished into thin air flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing
The Boeing 777 was supposedly carrying 228 passengers and a crew of 12
But investigator Andre Milne has claimed there was an extra passenger onboard

The Malaysia Airlines jet MH370 was carrying a mysterious extra passenger who probably took control of the cockpit before plunging it into the Indian Ocean, according to a new theory which has emerged on the same day a lawsuit was filed in the US on behalf of the families of 44 people on board the missing plane.

The Boeing 777, believed to be carrying 239 passengers and crew, vanished three years ago today.

It was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Malaysia, Australia and China finally suspended an enormous search in the southern Indian Ocean in January this year after failing to find any trace of the plane.

The plane's manifest had 228 passengers listed but a volunteer investigator, Andre Milne, claims to have uncovered signs of an extra passenger.

He said the official record says 239 people were missing but he said there were officially 226 passengers - four having failed to board - and 12 crew, which makes 238.

Mr Milne told express.co.uk: 'So now we have an 'extra' person on board MH370.'

He added: 'The extra passenger likely acted in conjunction with larger external operational support to take full command and control of the cockpit of MH370.'

A spokesman for the MH370 safety investigation team said: 'We are aware of this discrepancy. The actual number of passengers on-board was 227.'

He said the manifest, which listed 228 passengers, was actually a computerised load sheet which was transmitted about two hours before the aircraft's departure.

'The actual figures can differ from that transmitted on the load sheet due to last minute changes,' he said.

A lawsuit filed against Boeing in a US District Court in South Carolina, names seven malfunctions, from an electrical fire to depressurisation of the plane's cabin, that could have led to the crew losing consciousness, the plane's transponder stopping its transmission and the plane flying undetected until it crashed after running out of fuel.

The suit was filed by Gregory Keith, a special administrator for families who lost loved ones on the flight. It names 44 victims as plaintiffs.

The lawsuit was filed in South Carolina because Boeing has built a massive new plant in the state to build the 787 Dreamliner.

The lawsuit notes that search efforts for the plane have ended and says the lack of finality has led to unprecedented levels of 'economic and non-economic losses, emotional and physical pain, distress and mental pain and suffering' for the people on the airliner and their families. It does not ask for a specific amount of damages.

The lawsuit also says Boeing did not use technology which is available that would have allowed it to be tracked at all times and made the flight and cockpit voice recorders easier to find.

Boeing knew of design flaws on the aircraft, including defective wiring near combustible sources like the emergency oxygen supply to the plane's crew, says the lawsuit.

The lawsuit goes on to say: 'The defects caused and/or allowed a massive and cascading sequence of electrical failures onboard the lost plane which disabled vital systems ... making it impossible for the crew to navigate the plane or for the plane to communicate with the ground stations leaving the aircraft to fly without the ability to communicate or control the aircraft until the plane ran out of fuel.'

In March last year 12 Chinese families whose relatives were aboard the flight filed a lawsuit in Beijing.

It also named Boeing and jet engine manufacturer Rolls-Roys among the defendants.

Another lawsuit on behalf of the families of 32 passengers was filed in Kuala Lumpur.

A Malaysian woman and her two young sons also sued the airline, seeking damages of $7.6million (£6.25million) for the loss of her husband, S Puspanathan.

An Australian-based woman, Jennifer Chong, whose husband Chong Ling Tan was on the flight, filed similar claims in Australia, alleging the airline was negligent in failing to ensure passengers' safety.

The families of four more Australian passengers are seeking $200,000 (£165,000) compensation from Malaysia Airlines, according to documents filed in the Federal Court of Australia in April 2016.

In June 2016, two Malaysian boys whose father, Jee Jing Hang, was a passenger secured an out-of-court settlement in the first legal case against Malaysia Airlines and the government.

Boeing spokesman Tom Kim said it does not comment on pending lawsuits but the company said its thoughts remained with the people who died on Flight MH370.

Link to Article - Photos:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... crash.html

[Anthea]

MH370 FOUND on Google Earth
ex US Air Force man claims THIS is the missing plane

Could this fuzzy outline beneath the waves be the final resting place of the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 plane?

A UFO investigator looking for evidence of flying saucers inadvertently stumbled across the suspected aircraft in an eight-month-old Google satellite image.

If Scott C Waring is correct, the plane had travelled to the Cape of Good Hope, off Cape Town, South Africa.

Mr Waring, who is editor of UFO Sightings Daily, posted details of his discovery online.

If he has discovered the aircraft, it would appear the plane has survived the mystery crash largely in one piece.







The Boeing 777 disappeared on with 239 people on board en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.

The site of the debris find is about 1,200 miles from Cape Town.

Mr Waring blogged: "I was looking around the Cape of Good Hope for an old UFO sighting I found three years ago, and was hoping to make an update when I came across a shadow in the water, which resembled an airliner.

“I used to work on B-1 bombers back at Ellsworth SD, at an SAC during my USAF days. I know a plane when I see one."



Mr Waring speculated a Boeing 777-200 like MH370 would have enough fuel to fly between 6,000 miles and 7,700 miles and the "crash site" was about 5,400 from where it took off from.

He added: "The Google earth photo is dated July 26 2015 and it crashed on March 8 2014. It's had 16 months of moving about."

He now fears it could have moved since the picture was taken last July.

He said action was needed urgently to confirm or rule out his findings.

He said: "I know there is less than one per cent of one per cent of a chance that this is MH370, but it's better than we had five minutes ago right.

"I feel awful for those families who lost friends and family this plane and I hope this might get them some closure.”

Mr Waring has a knack for spotting well-know objects in satellite and other NASA images taken in space.

He regularly posts alleged sightings in images talked by the NASA Curiosity Rover droid that he says prove aliens exist such as beings, buildings, UFOs, ancient ruins, animals, fossils, the list goes on.

But most scientists agree he is simply falling victim to a phenomena known as pareidolia, when the brain tricks they were into seeing familiar objects like faces or animal shapes in textures or patterns like a rock surface.

To try and prove the theory, Mr Waring has tweeted Malaysia Airlines to alert them to the discovery and is awaiting a response.

Link to Article - Photos - Video:

http://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/649 ... sing-plane

[Anthea]

Passengers' Next-Of-Kin Settle Lawsuits With Malaysia Airlines

Malaysia Airlines, the company responsible for the still-missing Flight 370, recently settled several lawsuits relating to its mysterious disappearance. Attorneys announced Monday that four lawsuits filed by the relatives of MH370 victims had been handled out of court, just about three years after the Boeing 777 vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, Free Malaysia Today reported.

They would not reveal the amount of money Malaysia Airlines paid to the families, though the outlet consulted an expert who estimated each family likely got about $147,000.

"Damages were paid in line with the Montreal Convention," lawyer Americk Sidhu told Free Malaysia Today, referencing a 1999 international treaty that outlines compensation requirements for air accidents.

A number of lawsuits were filed worldwide after MH370 and the 239 people on board disappeared on March 8, 2014. The plane was thought to have crashed, but because answers have remained scarce — a recently concluded formal search of the Indian Ocean turned up no debris — people have disagreed on where to place the blame.

For example, a group of next-of-kin of 44 passengers sued Boeing in South Carolina earlier this month alleging that seven separate issues with the plane could have affected MH370's crew and the vehicle itself, NBC News reported.

"The defects caused and/or allowed a massive and cascading sequence of electrical failures onboard the lost plane which disabled vital systems ... making it impossible for the crew to navigate the plane or for the plane to communicate with the ground stations leaving the aircraft to fly without the ability to communicate or control the aircraft until the plane ran out of fuel," attorneys wrote at the time.

However, an analysis of that lawsuit out Monday from law firm Smith Amundsen suggested it could get thrown out because of a lack of debris from MH370. "Without any physical evidence or factual basis for what actually happened on March 8, 2014, the plaintiffs face an uphill battle on their claims," the report read.

http://www.ibtimes.com/flight-mh370-upd ... es-2511565

[Anthea]

Missing Malaysia Airlines plane:
How a routine flight became a mystery

The night sky was clear above the clouds, and the last glimmer of a setting half-moon had faded when Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, cruising at 10,000 metres over the Gulf of Thailand, approached the border between Malaysian and Vietnamese airspace on its usual route to Beijing. What happened next should have been routine for a twice-daily milk run between two of Asia?s most important cities. Air traffic controllers outside Kuala Lumpur usually hand the jet off to their counterparts in Ho Chi Minh City as the flight cruises northeast toward the Chinese capital.

But in those early hours of March 8, pilots flying nearby heard an unusual crescendo of chatter on the radio frequencies used by radar control in Vietnam and Malaysia. Air traffic personnel in both countries were trying and failing to reach the plane.

"Any stations in contact with Malaysian 370, please relay."

Vietnamese and Malaysian controllers asked one aircraft after another to radio the jet. Pilots listened as one plane after another tried and heard only static.

"Malaysian 370, this is Malaysian 88."

"Malaysian 370, this is Malaysian 52."

People who heard the calls, describing them for the first time, said they were calm, even laconic. The pilots trying to reach the airliner had no reason to believe it had suffered anything more than an ordinary radio malfunction. But those initial attempts to find a plane in the skies would soon evolve into an urgent multinational search operation spanning land and sea in two hemispheres. They signalled the start of what has become perhaps the most perplexing case in the history of modern aviation - one that investigators say may take years to solve, or could remain a mystery forever.

More than two weeks after Flight 370 disappeared, unbridled speculation surrounds the unfolding global drama. So much is uncertain about what happened on the plane, and so much of what has been disclosed by Malaysian authorities has been contradicted, that no theory of its fate can be easily dismissed. On Saturday, the authorities said a Chinese satellite had made a new sighting of a possible object floating in the southern Indian Ocean in the area that is now the focus of the search operation, and China was sending ships to investigate.

Based on dozens of interviews with people whose lives were touched by the plane as well as with outside experts and investigators from the two dozen countries searching for answers, this report presents a portrait of Flight 370 and the search to find it using what is known to date. But by necessity, it is an incomplete picture.

A Routine Night

Malaysia Airlines flies the Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysia capital, to Beijing route every day, twice a day. Flight 370, which departs at 12:35am and lands at 6:30am, is often the cheaper option.

Passengers are advised to arrive at least two hours in advance. On March 7, a delegation of 34 Chinese artists, relatives and organisers who had spent the past five days participating in an art exhibit in Kuala Lumpur played it safe with the city?s unpredictable Friday night traffic and arrived about 8 pm.

Perhaps the most prominent of the artists was the flight?s oldest passenger, Liu Rusheng, 77, a calligrapher who had published an essay about how he much treasured life because he had 'cheated death' six times, beginning with his abandonment as an infant by parents fleeing Japanese soldiers.

Daniel Liau, the delegation?s host, said Liu had 'the energy of a young man'. He helped Liu and the other artists check their luggage. Then they stood chatting under the modernist scalloped ceilings of the main terminal for about 90 minutes. Later, after the group had passed through security and taken the monorail to the satellite terminal, Liau called them one last time.

"How are the artists"? he recalled asking one of the organizers, Hou Bo, who replied they had reached the gate.

"Everybody is OK," Hou assured him.

Boarding began about midnight. The airline would have allowed the elderly - including Liu and his wife, Bao Yuanhua, 73 - and the families traveling with the two infants booked on the flight to get settled first. Next came the passengers holding passes for the 35 seats in business class.

Philip Wood, 50, an IBM executive from Texas and a regular on the flight because he was relocating from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur, held an economy ticket but hoped to be upgraded. He had long legs and was the holder of platinum frequent-flier card, said his partner, Sarah Bajc, 48, a teacher.

Bajc said she exchanged a dozen text messages with him before the flight about the movers, scheduled to arrive at their home in Beijing the next morning. "We discussed the state of packing, what still needed to be done," she said. His last message came just before he left for the airport.

Others on the flight were just passing through Kuala Lumpur, including Shi Xianwen, 26, a new father returning to China from a business trip to Australia. At the airport in Perth, he spent 40 minutes picking out a bracelet watch for his wife, whose birthday was approaching, an employee at the duty-free shop said.

And two passengers boarded the flight using stolen passports, Pouria Nourmohammadi Mehrdad, 19, and Seyed Mohammed Reza Delavar, 29, Iranian men described by Interpol as migrants being smuggled into Europe.

Mohammad Mallaeibasir, 18, an information technology student in Kuala Lumpur, said the pair stayed in his apartment the night before they left. Mehrdad was a friend from high school in Tehran, he said, and he told him he was starting a new life in Hamburg, Germany, where his mother was waiting.

"He was quite nervous," Mallaeibasir recalled. "I could see it on his face."

The next night, he drove them to the airport and offered to help them check in, but they insisted on entering separately, Delavar first. The two high school buddies waited in the car for five to 10 minutes, smoking cigarettes, before Mehrdad got out to leave.

Mallaeibasir gave him a hug and told him to have a safe flight. His friend carried a large backpack and a laptop computer bag into the terminal, and that was the last he saw of him.

The Aircraft

The plane the passengers boarded was a Boeing 777, one of the world?s most popular and advanced passenger jets, and Boeing?s first fly-by-wire commercial aircraft, in which electronic controls replaced manual ones. Pilots send commands that are conveyed to the wings and other components, and a computer helps keep the plane steady.

The 'Triple Seven'', as it often called, has all but replaced the 747 because it is cheaper to operate and can fly up to 16 hours without stopping to refuel. It also has one of the industry?s best safety records, with only two serious accidents in the 19 years it has been in service.

Malaysia Airlines, the nation?s state-run carrier, began using the Boeing 777 in 1997 and eventually had 15 of them in its fleet. One of them, the 404th model to roll off Boeing?s assembly line in Everett, Washington, was delivered to the airline in May 2002 and registered with tail number 9M-MRO. It was this plane that was used for Flight 370 and has disappeared.

Malaysia Airlines has said the jet has been involved in only one previous safety incident. On August 9, 2012, the tip of one of its wings broke off after it clipped the tail of a China Eastern Airlines Airbus A340 while taxiing at Shanghai Pudong International Airport. No one was hurt. Boeing said it sent a team of engineers and mechanics to remove and replace the damaged wing sections, and returned the plane to service after testing.

Boeing recommends a light maintenance inspection of the 777 after every 200 to 400 flights, or about 500 hours of flight time. Known as an 'A check,' the inspection usually is conducted in a hangar by a team of about 15 engineers working about 10 hours, often overnight. Malaysia Airlines said the jet?s last 'A check' took place Feb. 23, and uncovered no problems.

By the time it pulled up to the gate at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 8, the plane had completed more than 7500 flights and clocked over 53,400 hours in the air, according to Flightglobal, a news and data service for the aviation sector. That put it well within the average economic life of 23 years for a wide-body passenger jet.

In other words, there was little to distinguish this plane from the roughly 1170 other Boeing 777s now in use. That is why it is so important for investigators to determine if the plane?s disappearance was due to any malfunction or defect related to its design, build or engineering.

"The industry does not like uncertainty," said Mark Rosenker, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. "We will find out what happened."

Boarding

As they stepped on to the plane, the 227 passengers of Flight 370 were greeted by the flight attendants, four women in sarong kebayas and six men in grey three-piece suits. Some distributed hand towels, fruit juice and newspapers in business class; others helped those in economy find their seats.

Outside, ground crews loaded the passenger luggage into the jet?s cargo hold, which can carry up to six pallets and 14 shipping containers. The airline said there were no hazardous or valuable goods on the flight. But among the cargo was a 'significant' amount of lithium batteries - which can be flammable - more than is typically sent in a shipment, one US official said.

After the doors closed, the chief steward, Andrew Nari, would have welcomed the passengers via the loudspeaker and reminded them to turn off their mobile phones. Before shutting off his own, he sent a message to his mother. "It was just a normal SMS telling me that his plane would fly off soon," she later told The Star, a local newspaper.

In the cockpit were the pilots: the captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, a veteran aviator who joined the airline in 1981 and had 18,365 hours of flying experience, and his first officer, Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, who was transitioning to the Boeing 777 from the airline's narrow-body fleet.

After nudging away from the gate, the plane taxied to runway 32R. The lights would have dimmed in the cabin before one of the pilots asked the crew to be seated for takeoff.

With two Rolls-Royce Trent engines each capable of generating more than 400,000 newtons of thrust, the jet raced down the 4-kilometre-long runway and lifted off at 41 minutes after midnight. As the plane banked and climbed, passengers on the port side might have spotted the glow of Kuala Lumpur and perhaps the Petronas Towers in the distance.

At 1:07 am, as the jet approached the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia, ground crews received what the authorities have described as a routine text message from the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, or ACARS, which sends regular updates on the condition of the plane by radio or satellite.

By then, the first beverage service of the flight was most likely underway - soft drinks, juice and peanuts in economy, and various drinks, including Champagne, along with a snack such as charcoal-grilled chicken and lamb satay in peanut sauce in business. The in-flight entertainment system offered a wide selection of movies in more than a dozen languages.

Air traffic control in Sebang, outside Kuala Lumpur, followed the plane by tracking its transponder, a device that "squawks" or emits an identifying signal in response to a signal from radar. The night began with Flight 370 squawking code 2157 and reporting altitude, speed and bearing.

As the plane approached Vietnamese airspace, Sebang informed the pilots that they were being transferred to radar control in Ho Chi Minh City. At 1:19 am, a voice identified by the authorities as that of the first officer, Fariq, replied, "All right, good night."

Two minutes later, Flight 370's transponder stopped responding. It is unclear whether someone turned a dial on an instrument panel between the pilot and co-pilot and put the transponder in standby mode, or whether a malfunction caused it to go quiet.

One moment, radar scopes showed the plane traveling northwest at 471 knots (872 kmh). The next moment, it was gone.

The military in Vietnam marked the time at 43 seconds past 1:20 am.

Mystery Signal

As air traffic controllers struggled to re-establish contact with Flight 370, military radar at the Butterworth air force base on Malaysia?s west coast picked up an unidentified aircraft near where the plane disappeared.

But the watch team, normally an officer and three enlisted personnel, either failed to notice the signal or decided not to designate and track it as a 'zombie,' which would have pushed the information up the chain of command and possibly alerted air command.

At a briefing on the base the next night, about 80 air force personnel were told there was 'no proof' the unidentified signal showed the missing plane making a sharp turn, flying back across Peninsular Malaysia and then turning again and heading northwest over the Strait of Malacca, a person familiar with the situation said.

But investigators now believe that is exactly what happened.

The failure or refusal to recognise Flight 370 in the radar data meant the Malaysian authorities continued to concentrate search operations in the seas to the east instead of focusing on the west, where the plane was last seen northwest of Butterworth at 2:22 am, according to an image of the radar track.

The authorities also failed to move quickly on data that showed the plane continuing to fly nearly seven more hours - regular handshake signals from the plane to a satellite seeking to determine if the aircraft was still in range.

Chris McLaughlin, a vice president at Inmarsat, the satellite communications firm, said technicians pulled the logs of all transmissions from the plane within four hours of its disappearance. Then, after a day without sign of the plane, they began scouring the company?s databases for any trace of Flight 370.

"We decided to go have another look at our network to see if there was any data that we had missed," McLaughlin said. It turned out there was. Inmarsat technicians identified what appeared to be a series of fleeting "pings" between Flight 370, a satellite over the Indian Ocean and a ground station in Perth, Australia.

The signals - seven of them transmitted at one-hour intervals - were an important clue, because they could have come only from an antenna receiving power from the plane itself. But while they carried a unique code identifying the aircraft as Flight 370, the signals contained no positioning or other data that could indicate where the plane was when it sent them.

By Sunday afternoon, the engineers set to work using the principles of trigonometry to determine the distance between the satellite and the plane at the time of each ping, and then to calculate two rough flight paths. The plane, they concluded, had turned again. But it may have then traveled in more or less a straight line, heading north over countries likely to have picked it up on radar, or south toward the Indian Ocean and Antarctica. The Malaysian government said it received Inmarsat's findings on March 12 and spent three days analysing and vetting it with investigators from the United States before redirecting the search toward the south Indian Ocean on March 15.

By then, more than a week had passed since the last satellite ping, recorded at 8:11 am on March 8, halfway around the world from where the plane should have been, on a tarmac in Beijing.

http://www.drive.com.au/world/missing-m ... hvm5p.html

[Anthea]

MH370 Debris Hunter Gets Death Threats



MH370 Search Must Continue, Australia’s Former PM Says:

Tony Abbott said Friday that he did not believe all search avenues in the southern Indian Ocean had been exhausted so as to suspend the search.

The mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airline flight MH370 is yet to be solved, but more theories regarding the fate of the plane continue to surface.

On Wednesday, an Australian news outlet reported that a private searcher who found plane debris, some of which have been confirmed to be part of the missing plane, has received death threats.

Blaine Gibson has been searching for MH370 debris on islands in the Indian Ocean, where according to drift model, the wreckage may have washed up after the plane went down in a remote part of the ocean.

Gibson told Perth Now he feared for his life after receiving death threats that came amid his plans to hand over possible plane debris to the Malaysian consul in Madagascar.

The mystery behind the death threats further deepened after it was reported that Zahid Raza, the honorary Malaysian consul in Madagascar, was allegedly killed on Aug. 25.

"For the protection of those involved we decided not to make this report public until the debris was safely delivered to Malaysia,” Gibson said. “Under the agreement between the two countries, debris is supposed to be collected by Zahid Raza and delivered by private courier to Malaysia.”

He added that the debris was currently with Madagascar authorities, and new arrangements must be made for it to be handed over to Malaysia.

Commenting on the latest incident, Victor Iannello of the Independent Group, which is closely following the MH370 disappearance, told Perth Now: “What makes a possible link to MH370 even more suspicious is that in the time period surrounding his death, Mr. Raza was expected to visit the Malagasy Ministry of Transport, retrieve additional recovered pieces, and deliver those pieces to Malaysia.”

According to Iannello “the assassination of Mr. Raza (French Malagasy national) has been met with stony silence from both Malaysia and France, despite his ties to both countries.”

Flight MH370 went missing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board while on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Despite a multimillion-dollar search for the plane over three years, there is still no clarity as to what might have happened to the plane.

A Boeing 777 flaperon cut down to match the one from flight MH370 found on Reunion island off the coast of Africa in 2015, is lowered into the water to discover its drift characteristics by Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation researchers in Tasmania, Australia, in this handout image taken March 23, 2017. Photo: Reuters

Months after the plane's disappearance, reports surfaced of debris pieces washing up on shores of islands in the southern Indian Ocean. Some of the debris pieces were confirmed to have come from the missing Boeing 777-200. However, after a fruitless search for three years, authorities responsible for the search suspended the hunt early this year.

Hijacked by Terrorists

Some speculate that the Malaysian jetliner was hijacked by terrorists. In 2014, Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets reported, citing an alleged Russian intelligence source, that the plane had been taken over by unknown terrorists and flown to Afghanistan, where the crew and passengers are being held captive.

Other theorists believe terrorists hijacked the plane and crashed it into the sea. This theory surfaced after it came to light that at least two of the passengers on board the jet were traveling on stolen passports. But Malaysian officials said the two men had no apparent links to terrorist groups, according to BBC News.

Fire

One popular theory is there was a fire on board MH370, possibly electrical or from an overheated tire on takeoff, that killed all passengers and crew. Greg Feith, a former crash investigator for U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, disputed the theory, saying there would have been a distress call in the case of a fire.

Member of staff at satellite communications company Inmarsat point to a section of the screen showing the southern Indian Ocean to the west of Australia, at their headquarters in London, March 25, 2014. Photo: REUTERS/Andrew Winning/File Photo

Shot Down

London-based journalist Nigel Cawthorne wrote in his book “Flight MH370: The Mystery” that the plane was accidentally shot down during a joint Thai-U.S. military training drill. His claims were based on the eyewitness testimony of a New Zealand oil rig worker, Mike McKay, who said he saw a burning plane go down in the Gulf of Thailand, shortly after MH370 stopped communicating with air traffic controllers.

Death-dive Theory

Another widely believed theory is that the pilot of the plane deliberately crashed the jet into the ocean.

A Second Bermuda Triangle

Some theorists even believe the jet disappeared after entering the Dragon's Triangle, an area in the Indian Ocean, similar to a patch of sea in the North Atlantic Ocean known as the Bermuda Triangle, or Devil’s Triangle, where a number of aircraft and ships are said to have disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/mh370-debris ... 01739.html

[Anthea]

MH370's enduring mystery 'almost inconceivable', report says



Australian investigators have delivered their final report into missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370, saying it is "almost inconceivable" the aircraft has not been found.

MH370 disappeared in 2014 while flying to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur with 239 people on board.

The search for the jet, also involving Malaysia and China, was called off in January after 1,046 days.

Australian searchers said they "deeply regretted" it had not been found.

"It is almost inconceivable and certainly societally unacceptable in the modern aviation era with 10 million passengers boarding commercial aircraft every day, for a large commercial aircraft to be missing and for the world not to know with certainty what became of the aircraft and those on board," the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said on Tuesday.

"Despite the extraordinary efforts of hundreds of people involved in the search from around the world, the aircraft has not been located."

Their final report reiterated estimates from December and April that the Boeing 777 was most likely located 25,000 sq km (9,700 sq miles) to the north of the earlier search zone in the southern Indian Ocean.



The hunt formed one of the largest surface and underwater searches in aviation history.

After the initial 52-day surface search failed, investigators trawled the sea floor and ultimately ruled out an area of more than 120,000 sq km.

In 2015 and 2016, suspected debris from MH370 washed up on islands in the Indian Ocean and the east coast of Africa.

Investigators came up with its current likely location after analysing drift modelling of debris and satellite data.

In the report, investigators said their understanding of MH370's location was "better now than it has ever been".

The Australian government has said only "credible" new evidence will prompt it to resume the search.

The Malaysian government is continuing to investigate the circumstances surrounding the disappearance.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-41479910

[Piling]

Perhaps the plane was swallowed by another world gap.

[Anthea]

There is no doubt this flight was hijacked and there was a ship or submarine was waiting for it at the place where landed or crashed in the sea. So either the hijackers and the target, which they were after, came down by parachute to be picked up by the waiting submarine/ship or when the plane crashed to the sea every one picked up by the waiting submarine or ship. This must be the true story.

Whatever people claimed happened to Flight 370, it is extremely difficult for something that size to vanish so completely

I believe that there has been a cover-up and that someone somewhere knows exactly what happened

[Anthea]

MH370: Malaysia in deal with private search firm to find missing plane

‘No find, no fee’ search to be undertaken by US-based seabed exploration company Ocean Infinity

Malaysia has entered into a “no find, no fee” arrangement with a private search company, Ocean Infinity, in a bid to recover the missing MH370 plane and discover the fate of the 239 people on board.

Late on Thursday, Australia’s minister for infrastructure and transport, Darren Chester, acknowledged the agreement between the Malaysian government and the US-based seabed exploration company.

“The Malaysian government has accepted an offer from Ocean Infinity to search for the missing plane, entering into a ‘no find, no fee’ arrangement,” the MP said.

Australia will provide technical assistance at the request of the Malaysian government.

Flight MH370 vanished on 8 March 2014, on the way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 239 people on board.

Its disappearance is one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries and sparked the largest ever search, costing about $200m.

The Australian-led search for the aircraft was suspended in January, much to the anguish of distraught relatives.

Chester said he was hopeful but did not want to raise “hopes for the loved ones of those on board.”

At the time it was suspended, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau released findings from international and CSIRO scientists which identified a smaller 25,000sq km area with “a high probability” that it contained the aircraft.

“Ocean Infinity will focus on that part of the sea floor,” Chester said.

Two Australian women who lost their husbands had earlier said they were excited to hear the search might resume.

Melbourne woman Jennifer Chong, whose husband and the father of her two sons, Chong Ling Tan, was on the flight, said she and other relatives had been working for the search to be restarted.

Mother of two Danica Weeks, who lost her husband Paul on the plane, said she was initially physically shaking with joy and felt a “weight lifted” when she read the search might resume.

Weeks and Chong separately sued the airline as a result of the deaths of their husbands.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... b-gdnworld

[Anthea]

MH370 pilot likely 'flew plane to the end' and ditched it at sea
Top air crash investigator claims as fresh search for the missing flight ramps up

Officials hunting for flight MH370 believe the pilot may have ditched the aircraft

US-based company Ocean Infinity took over the search for the missing flight

Investigators say most likely scenario is pilot flew it to the end and dumped it

The company will resume search for MH370's ocean grave in a matter of weeks

Fresh updates on the hunt for the inexplicably missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 indicate the plane may have been ditched in an ocean grave after the pilot flew it to the end.

Australian authorities failed to locate the jet following several years of combing the sea for debris and finally called off the futile search in January.

But the families of lost passengers were thrown a lifeline in October when US-based company Ocean Infinity offered to takeover the search for free - and now investigators claim the pilot likely flew the aircraft to the end and ditched it.

According to reports in The Australian, lead air crash investigator Captain John Cox believes evidence from the recovered wing flaps suggests the doomed plane was dumped intentionally.

'Based on that analysis I think it is likely, possibly highly likely, that there was an attempt to ditch the airplane,' Captain Cox said.

Ocean Infinity stepped in to take over the $200 million search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane MH370 for free amid claims experts pinpointed the crash site.

The company struck a 'no find no fee' deal with the Malaysian Government and will receive $90 million only if it locates the wreckage.

The publication reports that the search will resume under Ocean Infinity's lead in a matter of weeks.

MH370 disappeared without a trace during a scheduled flight to Kuala Lumpar from Beijing on March 8, 2014, along with 12 Malaysian crew members and 227 passengers from 15 nations.

The multinational search for the missing aircraft cost Australian, Malaysian and Chinese taxpayers $200 million but after three years officials are still no closer to learning what truly happened on that flight.

Ocean Infinity intends to send a vessel with advanced sonar scanning technology to a smaller, 25,000sqm space where authorities believe contains vital clues for finding the debris.

Captain Cox's suggestion of a ditched aircraft does not support the popular theories that the plane was destroyed in a 'death dive' or a 'ghost flight'.

Some 20 pieces of debris suspected or confirmed to be from the missing MH370 flight have washed ashore on coastlines throughout the Indian Ocean.

Link to Article - Lots of Photos:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... plane.html

[Anthea]

A fantastical ship has set out to seek Malaysian Airlines flight 370

A swarm of submarine drones will scour the depths for the plane

Please click image to enlarge


ON JANUARY 2nd 2018, at 8pm local time, a strange vessel weighed anchor and sailed out of the Port of Durban, in South Africa, heading east. Her hull was orange. Her superstructure bristled with antennas—some long and pointy, some sleek, white and domed. Her stern sported a crane and also a strange gantry, known to her crew as the “stinger”. Her bow looked so huge and ungainly as to be on the point of tipping her, nose first, into the depths. And below deck, invisible to the casual observer, she carried eight autonomous submarines called HUGINs, each six metres long, weighing 1,800kg, and containing a titanium sphere to protect the sensitive electronics therein from the pressure of the ocean’s depths.

The strange ship’s name is Seabed Constructor. She is a Norwegian research vessel, built in 2014 and owned by Swire Seabed, a dredging and surveying firm in Bergen. At the moment, though, she is leased to Ocean Infinity, a company based in Houston, Texas. And the task Ocean Infinity has hired her for is a hard one: to find whatever is left of flight MH370, a Boeing 777-200ER that left Kuala Lumpur on March 8th 2014 with 239 people on board and vanished over the Indian Ocean.

The disappearance of MH370 is one of the great mysteries of modern civil aviation. The aircraft was bound for Beijing, but changed course suddenly over the South China Sea and broke off radio contact. It was last detected by radar near the northern tip of Sumatra, heading west-north-west into the open ocean. Subsequent connections to a communications satellite suggested that it crashed somewhere along an arc 1,500km west of Australia.

The search that followed was the largest in aviation history. It was mounted by Fugro, a Dutch firm, and paid for by the Malaysian, Chinese and Australian governments. Over the course of three years Fugro managed to scan 120,000 square kilometres of seabed. But it found nothing. The plan is for Ocean Infinity’s search to be paid for, on a “no find, no fee” basis, by Malaysia alone. Contracts have yet to be signed, but Oliver Plunkett, Ocean Infinity’s boss, has decided to go ahead anyway, to take advantage of the window of good weather that opens in the southern Indian Ocean in January and February.

Ocean Infinity aims to cover the ground much faster than Fugro did. In prior cruises in the Atlantic, the firm has, according to Josh Broussard, its technical director, managed to scan 890 square kilometres a day using six autonomous submarines. With eight, Mr Broussard thinks that the new mission will be able to manage 1,200 a day—enough to have covered the original search area in just 100 days.

The new search area, 25,000 square kilometres of sea floor chosen by investigators from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), is just north of the old one (see map). Fugro could infer MH370’s crash site only from its final, rather shaky, communication signals. Ocean Infinity’s effort has been guided as well by wreckage washed ashore on the coasts of Madagascar, Mozambique and Réunion—hence the more northerly starting point. Seabed Constructor will reach the starting-point of the search, about 35°S off the coast of Western Australia, on or about January 17th, her crew having conducted a few final tests and calibrations of the HUGIN system en route, using remote-controlled robots to place dummy debris on the sea floor in order to see if the subs can find it. If searching the patch of ocean designated by the ATSB reveals nothing, then the ship will head further north, towards the 30th parallel, which some independent experts believe is a better bet.

Rolling in the deep

Fugro’s search used but a single autonomous submarine, and this was unable to dive below 4,000 metres, meaning it was not always close to the seabed. The HUGINs carried by Seabed Constructor can, however, go as deep as 6,000 metres. That permits them to reach most of the sea floor comfortably. And the fact that there are eight of them means different areas can be searched in parallel, and that some submarines will always be at sea.

The HUGINs will be launched by the stinger, which extends out over the ship’s stern. Once underwater, the robot craft will communicate with the ship using an acoustic modem. The ship’s own modem, which will receive these signals, is fixed to the end of a long pole that extends down through her hull into the water.

Each HUGIN comes with a 300kg lithium-polymer battery pack, good for a tour of duty lasting up to 60 hours. A downward-pointing sonar will map the contours of the seabed beneath the craft, but most of the searching will be done by side-mounted sonars scanning the bed on either side of the craft. These send out pings and measure the intensity with which they are reflected. Sand reflects less sound than metal does, meaning metal objects such as aircraft debris are easy to distinguish. And if something apparently metallic is detected, its nature can be confirmed using an on-board magnetometer.

The HUGINs’ search patterns are set by people, but the craft will actually navigate with little reference to their mother ship. Every so often, the ship will send out a corrective ping to keep them on course. Mostly, however, they will employing dead reckoning, based on data from accelerometers, to steer themselves autonomously. They are also capable of picking their way without assistance over sheer underwater cliffs and mountains, past crevices and gullies, using on-board cameras and machine-vision software.

After its tour of duty, a HUGIN will be lifted back on-board ship and the data it has collected (up to two terabytes, recorded on a waterproof hard drive) downloaded into the ship’s data centre and turned into human-readable maps, a process that takes six hours. The HUGIN’s battery will be replaced with a fully charged one, any necessary repairs made, and the craft then sent back out into the ocean.

A team of geologists and hydrographers will then pore over the maps, looking for signs of the missing plane. Surprisingly, for such a high-tech operation, this stage of the search will be entirely manual. Every block of sea floor that the HUGINs map will be examined by three sets of human eyes. Together, this survey team will come up with a list of possible targets, ranked from “E” to “A” (“nothing” to “that’s it”), to present to their bosses. If the data look good, a HUGIN will be sent down for a second, closer look, cameras at the ready.

What happens next, if Ocean Infinity does locate what is left of the missing aircraft, is unclear. Friends and relatives of those aboard it will doubtless find relief from knowing where the flight ended up. But merely finding the wreckage will not explain what happened on board the plane. That will require the discovery of the aircraft’s flight recorder.

That object is therefore Ocean Infinity’s ultimate target. If the firm finds it on this mission, Mr Broussard says they plan to bring it to the surface and then deliver it for analysis to the Australian authorities, who have the technical competence to assess it. A follow-up trip to examine the wreckage, and even bring it to the surface, would require further authorisation from the Malaysian government.

Seabed Constructor is the most advanced civilian survey vessel on the planet today. If its array of technology cannot find MH370, then it is likely that nothing will, and that the mystery of MH370 may never be solved. Either way, though, the advance of technology may mean that it is the last such mystery. As the oceans are watched with ever closer scrutiny, from space and the depths, it is increasingly difficult for anything to get lost in the first place.

https://www.economist.com/news/science- ... tical-ship

[Anthea]

How MH370 pilot avoided being detected by radar for HOURS to ensure the plane was never found - as aviation experts reveal chilling discoveries about the flight's final moments

Experts forensically reconstruct Malaysia Airlines flight MH370's final moments
They believe the plane was brought down in planned and deliberate criminal act
Captain made an unexplained turn to fly over his hometown of Penang
Former Australia Transport Safety Bureau head determined to find the aircraft
It's been four years since it vanished en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur

World renowned aviation experts say the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was a planned and deliberate criminal act.

It's been four years since the flight vanished en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014.

What happened to the Boeing 777 and 239 people on board, including eight Australians, remains one of the world's greatest aviation mysteries.

A panel of internationally renowned aviation experts shed new light and revealed chilling discoveries about the flight's final moments on Sunday night's episode of 60 Minutes.

They all agreed that the probability of it being an accident was 'one in a trillion' and that pilot captain Zaharie Amad Shah 'deliberately' brought down the plane.

'I think the general public can take comfort in the fact that there is a growing consensus on the plane's final moments,' veteran air crash investigator Larry Vance told the program.

He believes the pilot 'was killing himself' and took the aircraft to the most remote place possible so it would 'disappear'.

'Unfortunately, he was [also] killing everybody else on board, and he did it deliberately,' Mr Vance said.

Former Australia Transport Safety Bureau head Martin Dolan added: 'This was planned, this was deliberate, and it was done over an extended period of time.'

According to Simon Hardy, a Boeing 777 pilot and instructor, Captain Zaharie avoided detection of the plane by either Malaysian or Thai military radar by flying along the border, crossing in and out of each country's airspace.

'As the aircraft went across Thailand and Malaysia, it runs down the border, which is wiggling underneath, meaning it's going in and out of those two countries, which is where their jurisdictions are,' Mr Hardy said.

'So both of the controllers aren't bothered about this mysterious aircraft. If you were commissioning me to do this operation and try and make a 777 disappear, I would do exactly the same thing.

'As far as I'm concerned, it's very accurate flying because it did the job and we know, as a fact, that the military did not come and intercept the aircraft.'

After reconstructing MH370's actual flight plan, Mr Hardy made a chilling discovery that the captain made an unexplained and strange turn to fly over his hometown of Penang.

'So I spent a long time thinking for this about what this could be, what technical reason is there?,' he said.

'And after two months of thinking about it, I finally got the answer - somebody was looking out the window. It might be a long, emotional goodbye or a short, emotional goodbye to his hometown.'

Former Australia Transport Safety Bureau head Martin Dolan spearheaded the two- year search for the doomed flight in a search zone covering 120,000 square kilometres of sea.

The largest search in aviation history was suspended in January last year.

The search area was based on the assumption that MH370 fell out of the sky in a steep, uncontrolled 'death dive'.

The assumption was disputed by Mr Hardy and Mr Vance, who believe the plane was ditched in a controlled landing.

Mr Vance believes the majority of the aircraft is still intact.

'If we don't end up finding the aircraft in the search area, then the conclusion is that yes, we focused on the wrong set of priorities,' Mr Dolan admitted.

But while the panel said finding the missing plane 'isn't necessary', they are confident the wreckage will be discovered.

'When you look at it and you go back into the history of commercial jet aviation, with fare-paying passengers on board, we've always found the plane,' international air-safety expert John Cox said.

'To have one that we can't find is probably aviation's greatest single mystery.'

The Malaysian Government struck a deal with exploration firm Ocean Infinity to resume the search in an area north of the original zone, that scientists now believe is the likeliest crash site.

The search restarted in January and is expected to end by mid-June.

Mr Cox remains hopeful they will find the wreckage.

'If you take history and you look back, it says we'll find it, we always have,' he said.

'So if history is our guide, I remain optimistic.'

Mr Dolan added: 'There are the families of the 239 people out there that at the moment still do not have an answer to what happened to their loved ones. I'm still passionately committed to finding this aircraft.'

Amanda Lawton's parents Bob and Cathy Lawton were on the fateful flight with friends Rodney and Mary Burrows.

'The world needs to know what happened to MH370,' she said.

'How does a Boeing 777 disappear and could this happen again? We need to find our loved ones. We're in so much pain - my sisters, family... it doesn't get any easier.'

She pleaded to authorities to not give up and continue searching.

'It has to be found,' Ms Lawton told 60 Minutes.

'We want to know where our loved ones are, their final resting place and what happened The search must go on for that closure. Please don't give up.'

Please follow link below for lots of Videos - Photos:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ction.html

[Anthea]

Last search for missing MH370 flight comes to an end
By Julian Robinson for MailOnline

MH370 vanished in 2014 with 239 on board during a flight from Kuala Lumpur
Texas-based firm will today wind up its privately funded search of Indian Ocean
Australia says it 'always remains hopeful' that the aircraft will one day be found
Malaysia says it will publish a full report into the disappearance in the near future

The 'last search' for missing Malaysian airlines flight MH370 has come to an end in the remote Indian Ocean - leaving the families of victims with nothing but hope.

Malaysia said the search by Texas-based firm Ocean Infinity, which has used a deep-sea vessel to scour the seabed, would end today after two extensions of the original 90-day time limit.

Australia said a four-year search for the missing aircraft had been the largest in aviation history and tested the limits of technology and the capacity of experts and people at sea.

But Transport Minister Michael McCormack added there would always be hope of finding the Boeing 777, which vanished on March 8, 2014 with 239 on board while flying from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing.

The 'last search' for MH370 has come to an end in the remote Indian Ocean - leaving the families of victims with nothing but hope. The plane is pictured over Poland a month before it vanished

Malaysia said the search by Texas-based firm Ocean Infinity, which has used a deep-sea vessel to scour the seabed, would end today after two extensions of the original 90-day time limit. Pictured: A girl has her face painted during a Day of Remembrance for MH370 in Kuala Lumpur

'Our thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the 239 people on board MH370,' Mr McCormack's office said in a statement. 'We will always remain hopeful that one day the aircraft will be located.'

Malaysia signed a 'no cure, no fee' deal with Ocean Infinity in January to resume the hunt for the plane, a year after the official search in the southern Indian Ocean by Australia, Malaysia and China was called off. No other search is scheduled.

Ocean Infinity chef executive Oliver Plunkett said the search would soon end after covering more than 112,000 square kilometers (43,000 square miles) of remote ocean floor - an area more than four times larger than the zone targeted by experts as the most likely crash site.

'I would firstly like to extend the thoughts of everyone at Ocean Infinity to the families of those who have lost loved ones on MH370. Part of our motivation for renewing the search was to try to provide some answers to those affected,' Plunkett said in a statement.

'It is therefore with a heavy heart that we end our current search without having achieved that aim,' he added.

Plunkett said he was pleased to hear the new Malaysian government had made finding the Boeing 777 that vanished with 239 people aboard a priority.

'Whilst clearly the outcome so far is extremely disappointing, as a company, we are truly proud of what we have achieved both in terms of the quality of data we've produced and the speed with which we covered such a vast area,' Plunkett said.

Pieces of debris have been found as far away as La Reunion (pictured), but the main body of the plane has still not been located

'We sincerely hope that we will be able to again offer our services in the search for MH370 in the future,' he added.

Australia, Malaysia and China agreed in 2016 that an official search would only resume if the three countries had credible evidence that identified a specific location for the wreckage.

The search area deemed by experts to be the most likely crash site was 9,650 square miles, an area roughly 25% larger than Wales.

Meanwhile, Malaysia's transport minister, Anthony Loke, said a full report into MH370's disappearance would be published in the near future, but he did not give a date.

'I can assure you the final report will be published with full disclosure. There will not be any edits, or anything hidden,' he told reporters late on Monday.

Asked whether the report would refer to controversial elements of the MH370 case, he said: 'To me, whatever elements, we will just publish it'.

The Boeing 777 vanished on March 8, 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing.

The original search focused on the South China Sea before analysis revealed the plane had made an unexpected turn west and then south

The original search focused on the South China Sea before analysis revealed the plane had made an unexpected turn west and then south.

Australia co-ordinated an official search on Malaysia's behalf that scoured 46,000 square miles and cost 200 million Australian dollars (£113m) before it ended in 2017.

Last year, Australian authorities said the MH370 captain had flown a route on his home simulator six weeks before the disappearance that was 'initially similar' to the course actually taken by the aircraft.

Peter Foley, who led the Australian Transport Safety Bureau's search efforts, told an Australian Senate hearing 'control inputs' had been made to fly the airliner off course, but he could not say if one of the pilots had done so.

Malaysian investigators said in 2015 they had found nothing suspicious in the financial, medical or personal histories of the pilots or crew.

Danica Weeks, an Australian resident who lost her husband on Flight 370, urged Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to call on the new Malaysian government to be more transparent about what they knew about the mysterious disappearance.

'There've been so many theories and rumours and… we don't know what is true and what isn't,' Ms Weeks told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

'I want Julie Bishop to say to the Malaysian counterparts now: 'what do you have? Where is the investigation at'?'

Foley, told an Australian Senate committee hearing last week that he still hoped that Ocean Infinity would be successful.

'If they're not, of course, that would be a great sadness for all of us,' Foley said.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... nding.html

[Anthea]

MH370 investigators say they cannot rule out 'unlawful interference'

MH370 investigators say they cannot rule out hijacking as 400-page report reveals doomed passenger jet was likely diverted from its flight path deliberately - as angry relatives say they've failed to provide answers

Malaysian government has released its final report on MH370 mystery today

The flight went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014

'Every word recorded by the investigation team will be tabled in this report'

It comes after years of conspiracy theories surrounding the doomed flight

Officials 'can't exclude possibility there was unlawful interference by third party'

Investigation report also said the aircraft has turned back 'under manual control'

Investigators probing the MH370 mystery today said they cannot rule out the possibility it was hijacked as they released a 400-page report into the disappearance of the doomed flight.

Officials said the plane, which went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014 with 239 on board had diverted from its flight path manually rather than due to a mechanical fault while 'interference by a third party' could not be excluded.

But angry families of those on board remain without definitive answers to one of aviation's greatest mysteries after experts said they are still unable to say why exactly the Boeing 777 disappeared.

Years of investigations have found no firm evidence as to what happened to the Malaysia Airlines plane.

Despite the largest ever search of its kind – across 46,000 square miles of the Indian Ocean – only parts of the aircraft have been found, having washed up on islands off the eastern coast of Africa.

This morning, families of missing passengers said the Malaysian government's final report on the aircraft had no new findings and officials said they were 'unable to determine the real reason for the disappearance'.

But while finding the plane was airworthy and the pilots were in a fit state to fly, the report did highlight mistakes and protocols and guidelines that were not followed, the families told reporters after a briefing on the report.

Investigators say they cannot rule out hijacking of MH370

Investigators say they 'cannot exclude the possibility that there was unlawful interference by a third party' as they released a key report into the the mystery of doomed flight MH370.

Lead investigator Kok Soo Chon said this morning that the probe had confirmed the plane had turned back under manual control and that 'we cannot exclude the possibility that there was unlawful interference by a third party'

Pieces of debris have been found as far away as La Reunion, but the main body of the plane has still not been located

Lead investigator Kok Soo Chon said this morning that the probe had confirmed the plane had turned back under manual control and that 'we cannot exclude the possibility that there was unlawful interference by a third party.'

He said this morning: 'We can conclude that MH370 had turned back and the turn back was not because of anomalies in the mechanical system. The turn back was made not under autopilot but under manual control.'

However, the team was unable to say why exactly the plane had strayed off its path and disappeared.
Lithium battery and mangosteen theory 'highly improbable'

The report revealed fresh details about a huge haul of batteries and fruit carried in the hold of flight MH370.

A consignment of about 487 lbs of lithium ion batteries was being transported on the plane as part of a Motorola shipment, the report said.

According to the Mirror, the report said the 7.4-volt batteries were too big to fit through airport x-ray machines in Kuala Lumpur on the day of the flight - but that the they met all necessary safety standards.

It was only months after the plane's disappearance that bigger scanners were brought in, the report said.

The plane was also carrying more than 10,000 lbs of mangosteens and there was speculation that extracts from the fruit may have reacted with the batteries and sparked a fire or produced dangerous fumes.

But the report appeared to play down this theory.

'There were concerns that the mangosteen extracts could have got into contact with the batteries and produced hazardous fumes or in a worst case scenario caused a short circuit and/or fire,' the report said, according to The Mirror

'This was highly improbable on board MH370 with a comparatively short flight duration and under controlled conditions.

'After carrying out the tests, STRIDE (Science and Technology Research Institute for Defence) was convinced that the two items tested could not be the cause in the disappearance of MH370.'

Kok said: 'We cannot determine with any certainty the reason the plane diverted from its planned route. The team is unable to determine the real reason for the disappearance.'

'The answer can only be conclusive if the wreckage is found,' he said when asked of they would ever find out what happened on the plane.

The report reiterated Malaysia's assertion that the plane was deliberately diverted and flown for more than seven hours after severing communications.

Relatives who were briefed at the transport ministry before the report's public release expressed anger that there was nothing new in the document, with some storming out of the briefing as frustration boiled over.

'It is so disappointing,' said Intan Maizura Othman, whose husband was a steward on MH370. 'I am frustrated. There is nothing new in the report.

'Those who gave the briefing from the ministry of transport were not able to give answers as they were not (the ones) who wrote the report.'

She said the meeting between relatives and officials descended into a 'shouting match' as family members' frustration boiled over.

'Many asked questions,' said G. Subramaniam, who lost a son on the flight, but added that 'unsatisfactory responses left many angry'.

One area that came in for criticism in the report by the 19-member investigation team, which included foreign investigators, was air traffic control.

It said both Malaysian air traffic control and their Vietnamese counterparts failed to act properly when the Boeing jet passed from Malaysian to Vietnamese airspace and disappeared from radars.

Air traffic controllers did not initiate emergency procedures in a timely fashion, delaying the start of the search and rescue operation, it said.

However it played down concerns about the pilot and first officer, saying neither appeared to have suffered difficulties in their personal lives that could have affected their ability to fly.

It also said the plane was airworthy and did not have major technical issues. This however meant that the plane's change of course 'was likely made while the aircraft was under manual control and not the autopilot', the report said.

Intervention by a third party could not be ruled out, it said, but also added there was no evidence to suggest the plane was flown by anyone other than the pilots.

The report also dismissed one conspiracy theory about the plane's disappearance - that it was taken over remotely to foil a hijacking, saying there was no evidence to support this.

The report reiterated Malaysia's assertion that the plane was deliberately diverted and flown for more than seven hours after severing communications

This morning, families of passengers said the report had no new findings on the reason for the plane's mysterious disappearance

Grace Subathirai Nathan (centre), daughter of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 passenger Anne Daisy, speaks during a press conference after being presented with the final investigation report on the missing flight, in Putrajaya, outside Kuala Lumpur, today

Experts believe someone may have deliberately switched off MH370's transponder before diverting it over the Indian Ocean.

The last communication from the plane was from the Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah who signed off with 'Good night, Malaysian three seven zero', as the plane left the Malaysian airspace.

A 440-page final report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) last year showed that Zaharie had flown a route on his home flight simulator six weeks earlier that was 'initially similar' to the one actually taken by MH370.

A forensic report by the Malaysian police previously concluded that there were no unusual activities other than game-related flight simulations.

Kok said the investigators examined the history of the pilot and the first officer, and they were satisfied with their background and training and mental health.

'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.

'We cannot exclude that there was an unlawful interference by a third party,' Kok said.

He added all the passengers of the 15 countries had their backgrounds checked by their respective countries and all came back with a clean bill of health.

Voice 370, a group representing the relatives, has previously urged the Malaysian government for a review of the flight, including 'any possible falsification or elimination of records related to MH370 and its maintenance'.

The report also dismissed one conspiracy theory about the plane's disappearance - that it was taken over remotely to foil a hijacking, saying there was no evidence to support this

Only three confirmed fragments of MH370 have been found, all of them on western Indian Ocean shores, including a two-metre wing part known as a flaperon

Sea floor mapping in search for missing flight MH370 released

The families said the report pointed to mistakes by the Malaysian air traffic control (ATC) centre. It showed there were only two attempted phone calls made to the aircraft from the ground, four to five hours apart.

The Malaysian Minister of Transport Anthony Loke had earlier said the report would be released on Monday after families of those on board were briefed.

'Every word recorded by the investigation team will be tabled in this report,' he said.

'It will be tabled fully, without any editing, additions or redactions.'

More than four years after the aircraft vanished on March 8, 2014, investigators have had little luck in finding the wreckage of the plane that vanished with 227 passengers on-board, plus the captain, co-pilot and 10 crew.

Only three confirmed fragments of MH370 have been found, all of them on western Indian Ocean shores, including a two-metre wing part known as a flaperon.

Malaysia's new government, which took power in May, has said the hunt could be resumed but only if new evidence comes to light and officials have seemed keen to draw under a line the tragedy.

Captain Shah, who was going through a marriage breakup, is believed to have downed the aircraft in an act of murder-suicide, by diverting from the flight path and plunging into the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Western Australia.

The four-year search for MH370 ended in May after the US-based technology firm Ocean Infinity failed to locate the plane while canvassing 125,000sq/km of the Indian Ocean.

Malaysia had signed a 'no find, no fee' deal with Ocean Infinity to resume the hunt for the plane after the official search led by Australia, Malaysia and China was called off in early 2017.

Several theories have emerged about how the plane disappeared, with some suggesting the plane was hijacked and others believing someone on board may have deliberately turned off the plane's transponder before diverting it over the Indian Ocean.

WHAT HAPPENED TO MH370? SOME OF THE THEORIES INTO THE MYSTERY EXAMINED

DID THE PILOT HIJACK HIS OWN PLANE?

Pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah planned mass murder because of personal problems, locking his co-pilot out of the cockpit, closing down all communications, depressurising the main cabin and then disabling the aircraft so that it continued flying on auto-pilot until it ran out of fuel.

That was the popular theory in the weeks after the plane's disappearance.

His personal problems, rumours in Kuala Lumpur said, included a split with his wife Fizah Khan, and his fury that a relative, opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, had been given a five-year jail sentence for sodomy shortly before he boarded the plane for the flight to Beijing.

But the pilot's wife angrily denied any personal problems and other family members and his friends said he was a devoted family man and loved his job.

This theory was also the conclusion of the first independent study into the disaster by the New Zealand-based air accident investigator, Ewan Wilson.

Wilson, the founder of Kiwi Airlines and a commercial pilot himself, arrived at the shocking conclusion after considering 'every conceivable alternative scenario'.

However, he has not been able to provide any conclusive evidence to support his theory.

The claims are made in the book 'Goodnight Malaysian 370', which Wilson co-wrote with the New Zealand broadsheet journalist, Geoff Taylor.

It's also been rumoured that Zaharie used a flight simulator at his home to plot a path to a remote island.

However, officials in Kuala Lumpur declared that Malaysian police and the FBI's technical experts had found nothing to suggest he was planning to hijack the flight after closely examining his flight simulator.

And there are also theories that the tragic disappearance may have been a heroic act of sacrifice by the pilot.

Australian aviation enthusiast Michael Gilbert believes the doomed plane caught fire mid-flight, forcing the pilot to plot a course away from heavily populated areas.

IF NOT THE PILOT, WAS THE CO-PILOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE MYSTERY?

Co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, again for personal problems, was suspected by rumour-spreaders to have overpowered the pilot and disabled the aircraft, flying it to its doom with crew and passengers unable to get through the locked cockpit door.

Theorists have put forward the suggestion that he was having relationship problems and this was his dramatic way of taking his own life.

But he was engaged to be married to Captain Nadira Ramli, 26, a fellow pilot from another airline, and loved his job. There are no known reasons for him to have taken any fatal action.

There have been a series of outlandish theories about the disappearance of the plane

Others have suggested that because he was known to have occasionally invited young women into the cockpit during a flight, he had done so this time and something had gone wrong.

Young Jonti Roos said in March that she spent an entire flight in 2011 in the cockpit being entertained by Hamid, who was smoking.

Interest in the co-pilot was renewed when it was revealed he was the last person to communicate from the cockpit after the communication system was cut off.

DID THE RUSSIANS STEAL MH370 AND FLY THE JET TO KAZAKHSTAN

An expert has claimed the missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 was hijacked on the orders of Vladimir Putin and secretly landed in Kazakhstan.

Jeff Wise, a U.S. science writer who spearheaded CNN's coverage of the Boeing 777-200E, has based his outlandish theory on pings that the plane gave off for seven hours after it went missing, that were recorded by British telecommunications company Inmarsat.

Wise believes that hijackers 'spoofed' the plane's navigation data to make it seem like it went in another direction, but flew it to the Baikonur Cosmodrome, which is leased from Kazakhstan by Russia.

However, Wise admits in New York Magazine that he does not know why Vladimir Putin would want to steal a plane full of people and that his idea is somewhat 'crazy'.

Wise also noted there were three Russian men onboard the flight, two of them Ukrainian passport holders.

Aviation disaster experts analysed satellite data and discovered - like the data recorded by Inmarsat - that the plane flew on for hours after losing contact.

Careful examination of the evidence has revealed that MH370 made three turns after the last radio call, first a turn to the left, then two more, taking the plane west, then south towards Antarctica.

MH370 WAS USED BY TERRORISTS FOR A SUICIDE ATTACK ON THE CHINESE NAVY

This extraordinary claim came from 41-year-old British yachtsman Katherine Tee, from Liverpool, whose initial account of seeing what she thought was a burning plane in the night sky made headlines around the world.

On arrival in Thailand's Phuket after sailing across the Indian Ocean from Cochin, southern India with her husband, she said: 'I could see the outline of the plane - it looked longer than planes usually do.There was what appeared to be black smoke streaming from behind.'

Ms Tee's general description of the time and place was vague and she lost all credibility when she later stated on her blog that she believed MH370 was a kamikaze plane that was aimed at a flotilla of Chinese ships and it was shot down before it could smash into the vessels.

Without solid proof of the satellite data, she wrote on her blog, Saucy Sailoress, the plane she saw was flying at low altitude towards the military convoy she and her husband had seen on recent nights. She added that internet research showed a Chinese flotilla was in the area at the time.

While the debris proved the plane went down in the Indian Ocean, the location of the main underwater wreckage — and its crucial black box data recorders — remains stubbornly elusive.

THE JET LANDED ON THE WATER AND WAS SEEN FLOATING ON THE ANDAMAN SEA

On a flight from Jeddah to Kuala Lumpur that crossed over the Andaman Sea on March 8, Malaysian woman Raja Dalelah, 53, saw what she believed was a plane sitting on the water's surface.

She didn't know about the search that had been started for MH370. She alerted a stewardess who told her to go back to sleep.

'I was shocked to see what looked like the tail and wing of an aircraft on the water,' she said.

It was only when she told her friends on landing in Kuala Lumpur what she had seen that she learned of the missing jet. She had seen the object at about 2.30pm Malaysian time.

She said she had been able to identify several ships and islands before noticing the silver object that she said was a plane.

But her story was laughed off by pilots who said it would have been impossible to have seen part of an aircraft in the water from 35,000ft or seven miles.

Ms Raja filed an official report with police the same day and has kept to her story.

'I know what I saw,' she said.

THE AIRCRAFT SUFFERED A CATASTROPHIC SYSTEMS FAILURE AND CRASH-LANDED ON THE OCEAN

A catastrophic event such as a fire disabling much of the equipment resulted in the pilots turning the plane back towards the Malaysian peninsula in the hope of landing at the nearest airport.

Satellite data, believable or not, suggests the aircraft did make a turn and theorists say there would be no reason for the pilots to change course unless confronted with an emergency.

A fire in a similar Boeing 777 jet parked at Cairo airport in 2011 was found to have been caused by a problem with the first officer's oxygen mask supply tubing.

Stewarts Law, which has litigated in a series of recent air disasters, believes the plane crashed after a fire - similar to the blaze on the Cairo airport runway - broke out in the cockpit.

After an investigation into the Cairo blaze, Egypt's Aircraft Accident Investigation Central Directorate (EAAICD) released their final report which revealed that the fire originated near the first officer's oxygen mask supply tubing.

The cause of the fire could not be conclusively determined, but investigators pinpointed a problem with the cockpit hose used to provide oxygen for the crew in the event of decompression.

Following the 2011 fire, US aircraft owners were instructed to replace the system - it was estimated to cost $2,596 (£1,573) per aircraft. It was not known whether Malaysia Airlines had carried out the change.

If either pilot wanted to crash the plane, why turn it around? So the turn-around suggests they were trying to land as soon as possible because of an emergency.

THE US SHOT DOWN THE AIRCRAFT FEARING A TERROR ATTACK ON DIEGO GARCIA

The Boeing 777 was shot down by the Americans who feared the aircraft had been hijacked and was about to be used to attack the U.S. military base on Diego Garcia atoll in the Indian Ocean. So conspiracy theorists claim.

And former French airline director Marc Dugain said he had been warned by British intelligence that he was taking risks by investigating this angle.

There is no way of checking whether Dugain received such a warning or why he believes the Americans shot down the plane.

But adding to the theory that the aircraft was flown to Diego Garcia, either by the pilot Zaharie or a hijacker, was the claim that on the pilot's home flight simulator was a 'practice' flight to the island.

Professor Glees said: 'The Americans would have no interest in doing anything of the kind and not telling the world.

'In theory, they might wish to shoot down a plane they thought was attacking them but they wouldn't just fire missiles, they'd investigate it first with fighters and would quickly realise that even if it had to be shot down, the world would need to know.'

Mr Rosenschein said: 'The U.S. would not have been able to hide this fact and in any event, if it were true, they would have admitted their action as it would have prevented a successful terrorist action on this occasion and acted as a deterrent for future terrorist attacks.'

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[Anthea]

So sad that after more than 4 years the families still do not know what happened to their loved ones

Now it seems they will never know

There must have been a giant cover-up but who or why we will never know