The University of WA said it has identified a precise location of where it believes the Boeing 777 crashed.
On Monday, on the eve of the third anniversary of its disappearance on March 8, 2014, with 239 people aboard, Professor Charitha Pattiaratchi said that UWA’s reverse-drift modelling put MH370 “at Longitude 96.5 E Latitude 32.5 S with a 40km radius”.
The location is at the northern end of a new area of 25,000sqkm identified late last year by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau as the most likely impact point for MH370, reported thewest.com.au.
The UWA predicted the landfall of debris from MH370 well over two years ago, and so far some 18 parts found across the Indian Ocean on the coastal areas of Africa, Mauritius, Madagascar and Reunion Island.
But a security expert from the US, Peter (Pierre) Cohen told The Independent he believes the fatal MH370 flight could not have landed in the Indian Ocean.
He said battery fire brought down MH370 in Gulf of Thailand.
He said all conspiracy theories had to be dismissed as the aircraft was not hijacked, since the pattern of its disappearance indicates it is battery fire that could have brought the plane down.
“I reject all conspiracies related to the pilot and co-pilot. So what if he had an ATS at home.
“Maybe he liked to practice with it. The claim there was a plane course on his ATS is not plausible,” he told The Independent.
Earlier reports on the missing plane showed that the plane’s captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, conducted a simulated flight deep into the remote southern Indian Ocean less than a month before the plane vanished under uncannily similar circumstances.
This led to theories that he had hijacked the plane, to crash it later in the Indian Ocean yet a massive search and rescue mission failed to locate the missing aircraft in vast regions of the rough ocean waters.
Cohen’s theories, however, defy the official statements about the whereabout of the missing airliner and challenge the experts on the reasons that could have brought the aircraft down.
“First of all, I still believe it is in the Gulf of Thailand and not the Indian Ocean and I have maintained that belief from the beginning,” he said.
When asked to clarify why the massive aircraft could be found on Google Earth and why no satellite in the region and during its fatal flight caught it in action, Cohen said not all the satellites of the World were tracking MH370 obviously.
But, the Indonesians, the closest nation with tracking, claim they saw no signals.
“That could be quite true. Maybe the ATCs were asleep in Jakarta or Surabaya, who can say?
“How many planes have crashed or gone missing and there are no international grid signals? Probably about 20 in the last decade,” he said.
He said he maintained his view that the plane did NOT cross over to Penang side and proceeded into the Indian Ocean.
“Not a SINGLE so-called piece of MH370 has been forensically proven to belong to the plane,” he said, despite the fact that France confirmed a wing part found in Reunion Island came from MH370.
After the 40 or so reports of finding parts of MH370, note how these are all 24 hr reports and then silence-no follow up on the reporting, he observed.
“The reason is because these are bogus. The French claimed they would examine the material found near Reunion Island.
“OK, so where are the results lah? Total silence from the French and the Australians, who deserve enormous credit for their role in the search.”
Coming back on the missing satellite images of MH370, he argued the aircraft was not that massive for it not to be missed in satellite photographs.
“It was not a large Airbus plane, which can easily get lost. The Indonesian plane crash in the fog last year.
“The ATCs claim they could not find the plane on the radar grid, and it was only later they found the plane in the water.
“Note the radar was useless in ascertaining the location of the plane. As you know fog is notorious in the Malacca Strait and over all of the Indonesian islands,” said Cohen,
He said the wood burning in Kalimantan and Sumatra doesn’t help.
Thus, I think your first question doesn’t really pertain to the issue of MH370.
“There are enough untrained ATCs in the West to make flights in the US, UK, Oz and Europe problematic.
“Only Israel has a nearly full-proof tracking system which, by the way, was sold to Singapore since the SAF was trained by Israel and then UK,” he said.
He does not dismiss the theories that the plane may be in the Indian Ocean waters entirely, but he has doubts.
“If the plane headed East, which I doubt, then it is at the bottom of the Indian or Pacific Ocean, which is very deep and requires DSS (Deep Sea Submersibles) to locate,” he said.
Nevertheless, he insists the plane had a natural fire and nosedived into the ocean.
“No explosion, no hijacking, no crazy pilot, no suicide, no planejacking. There was a battery fire, end of story,” COHEN said.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 or MH370 was a scheduled international passenger flight that disappeared on 8 March 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia.
It was heading to the Beijing Capital International Airport in China.
The aircraft, a Boeing 777-200ER last made voice contact with air traffic control at 01:19 MYT, 8 March (17:19 UTC, 7 March) when it was over the South China Sea, less than an hour after takeoff.
The aircraft disappeared from air traffic controllers’ radar screens at 01:22 MYT.
The Malaysian military said its radar continued to track the aircraft as it deviated westwards from its planned flight path and crossed the Malay Peninsula.
It left the range of Malaysian military radar at 02:22 while over the Andaman Sea, 200 nautical miles (370 km) north-west of Penang in north-western Malaysia.
It was carrying 12 Malaysian crew members and 227 passengers from 15 nations.
On Google Earth, Cohen said it is so widely in use and so disparate that it can either be an X-File with aliens reported in its data’s or it can also be a serious hardware and software platform for various GPS and GIS users.
“I am sure there were individuals who were trying GE to look for the plane. Remember, GE is not standard data tracking in transportation systems. Garmin is hardly a certified system for planes and trains but is for automobiles.
“How would you distinguish a plane from a volcanic eruption on GE? GE gives you coordinates, temporal topographic views (if available), but no signals or any electronic data like a plane data recorder or ATS (Automated Tracking System),” he said.
Peter can be reached by email: petercohen@hotmail.com or @HangTuahNakal (Twitter)