The Malaysia Airlines flight disappeared on March 8. (Representative pic)
Years after its disappearance, an Australian scientist has claimed that he has found the "perfect hiding place" for the missing MH370 plane. The Malaysian Airlines flight, with 239 people on board, vanished from radar after taking off from Kuala Lumpur in 2014. Its disappearance sparked the biggest search in aviation history with the whereabouts of the jet still unknown to this day. Now, Tasmanian researcher Vincent Lyne has said that he believes he has figured out where the plane is. In a LinkedIn post, Mr Lyne claimed that the plane was deliberately ploughed deep into the Broken Ridge - a 20,000-foot-deep hole in the Indian Ocean.
"This work changes the narrative of MH370's disappearance from one of no-blame, fuel-starvation at the 7th arc, high-speed dive, to a mastermind pilot almost executing an incredible perfect-disappearance in the Southern Indian Ocean," the researcher wrote.
"In fact, it would have worked were it not for MH370 ploughing its right wing through a wave, and the discovery of the regular interrogation satellite communications by Inmarsat - a brilliant discovery also announced in the Journal of Navigation," he added.
Mr Lyne, who works at the University of Tasmania's Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, further said that damage to the plane's wings, flaps and flaperon suggest it was involved in a "controlled ditching" similar to that of Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger on the Hudson River in 2009.
"This justifies beyond doubt the original claim, based on brilliant, skilled, and very careful debris-damage analyses, by decorated ex-Chief Canadian Air-crash Investigator Larry Vance, that MH370 had fuel and running engines when it underwent a masterful 'controlled ditching' and not a high-speed fuel-starved crash," Mr Lyne wrote.
The researcher stated that MH370 is "where the longitude of Penang airport (the runway no less) intersects the Pilot-in-Command home simulator track discovered and discarded by the FBI and officials as 'irrelevant.'"
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"That pre-meditated iconic location harbors a very deep 6000m hole at the eastern end of the Broken Ridge within a very rugged and dangerous ocean environment renowned for its wild fisheries and new deep-water species. With narrow steep sides, surrounded by massive ridges and other deep holes, it is filled with fine sediments - a perfect 'hiding' place," Mr Lyne continued, adding the area needs to be verified as a "high priority."
"Whether it will be searched or not is up to officials and search companies, but as far as science is concerned, we know why the previous searches failed and likewise science unmistakably points to where MH370 lies. In short, the MH370 mystery has been comprehensively solved in science!" he added.
Notably, flight MH370 with 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board disappeared after leaving Kuala Lumpur Airport in southern Malaysia en route to Beijing, China, on March 8, 2014. A nearly three-year search covering 120,000 square kilometres in the Indian Ocean found hardly any trace of the plane, with only some pieces of debris picked up. Despite the largest search in aviation history, the plane has never been found and the operation was suspended in January 2017.