By Frank Kamuntu
Experts have called for a new search on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 that disappeared with 239 passengers, following new leads on the flight.
Aerospace expert Jean-Luc Marchand and pilot Patrick Blelly called for a new search based on revelations about the fate of the flight.
The duo claimed the mystery of the missing flight could be solved in a matter of “days” if there was a new search.
During a lecture before the Royal Aeronautical Society in London, the pair said the new search area could be canvassed in 10 days in an open call for help.
“It could be a quick thing. Until the wreckage of MH370 is found, nobody knows [what happened]. But, this is a plausible trajectory,” Marchand said, according to Australian news site news.com.au.
In that same report by the news website, the pair called on Australia’s Transport Safety Authority, the Malaysian government, and Ocean Infinity – an exploration company – to start a new search.
Marchand said the “swift” search could be a good proving ground for the company’s new unmanned sub-nautical search technology.
He described it as an “atrocious one-way journey”, which he believed was likely carried out by an experienced aeroplane pilot.
“We think, and the study that we’ve done has shown us, that the hijacking was probably performed by an experienced pilot,” Marchand said.
“The cabin was depressurised … and it was a soft control ditching to produce minimal debris. It was performed so as to not be trapped or found.
“Certainly, the aircraft was not visible except for the military. The guy knew that if search and rescue would be triggered, it would be on the flight path.”
The pair argued that the plane’s transponder was turned off and that the “U-turn” it did away from the flight path could not have been autopilot.
On the evening of March 8, 2014, the Malaysia Airlines aircraft with 239 people on board left the Kuala Lumpur International Airport for Beijing but vanished from radar screens about two hours after its departure.
Following that, massive search operations involving several countries were conducted in the southern Indian Ocean, but neither the plane nor its wreckage was found.
