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Expert claims to have located MH370 crash site

written by Hannah Dowling | October 27, 2020

A file image of Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER 9M-MRO at Sydney. (Seth Jaworski)
A file image of Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER 9M-MRO at Sydney. (Seth Jaworski)

More than six years after Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 mysteriously vanished, independent experts investigating the matter believe to have found where the plane crashed.

Victor Iannello, an engineer and entrepreneur, is one in a team of four experts who have spent the last few years investigating the mysterious circumstances behind the disappearance of MH370.

Despite a number of previous failed searches for the aircraft, Iannello believes that previous crews may have just barely missed the wreckage of the plane.

According to Iannello’s estimates, the plane was tracking about 2,700 miles south of Indonesia when it crashed into the South Indian Ocean, somewhere around the co-ordinates of S34.2342 and E93.7875.

According to Iannello’s predictions, the odds are “better than even” that the missing Boeing 777 could be found somewhere within 100 nautical miles of this probable impact site.

The projected impact site sits around 1,000 miles off the south-west Australian coast.

Proposed location of MH370 crash site (Google maps)

Earlier this year, Iannello and his team of investigators conducted a study that examined 2,300 possible flight paths the aircraft could have taken, in order to identify the most-likely crash site.

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Their research utilised a variety of information available on the plane, including fuel data, military and civilian radar data, weather information and drift analysis of the debris which washed ashore.

Iannello is highly confident in the conclusion his team has drawn, and has renewed calls for another official search for the aircraft.

“There are better than even odds that the missing passenger plane is within 100 nautical miles of the potential impact site,” Iannello said.

“I won’t speak for the other three authors, but I believe that there is more than a 50 per cent chance that we’ll find the plane here. We now think another search should occur in the recommended search area.”

He added: “Any other area has a much lower probability. Portions of the recommended search area were already searched by GO Phoenix and Ocean Infinity. 

“Other than the portions that were previously searched, some of the data is either missing or of low quality due to the challenging terrain of the seafloor.”

MH370 had been flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on 8 March 2014, when it disappeared off all air traffic control radar screens, never to be seen again.

The aircraft had 239 passengers and crew onboard.

Since then, some debris believed to have come from MH370 has since washed ashore in the Western Indian Ocean, including a number of items found on beaches in Madagascar.

Currently, many have ruled the crash as a ‘murder-suicide’ by the pilot, with examined flight data suggesting the pilot had been “in control” of the aircraft “until the very end”.

However, other authorities believe that some kind of fire, accident or malfunction occurred on board, which caused the plane to divert from its original flight path in search of an emergency landing site.

The theory then suggests that the accident resulted in a ‘mass hypoxia event’, which would have deprived crew and passengers of oxygen, causing everyone on board to pass out.

Once the pilot, along with everyone else on board, was unconscious the plane would have then continued to fly on autopilot over the Indian Ocean, until it ran out of fuel.

This is the current official theory of the Malaysian government and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB).

Official underwater searches for MH370 were called off in 2018, with little progress made during the four-year search. No plans were made to continue searching in the future.

14 Comments

  • Martin

    says:

    The article indicates Victor is one of three ‘authors’, presumably of a report. But no reference / link is made to such a report. Presumably that assessment would be sent to AMSA so that they could study and consider the analysis in such a report?

  • Interested Observer

    says:

    What was the fuel load for the flight? Was it within the expected requirement for its planned flight to Beijing, or was it filled to the gunnels? I would think that would be an indication of whether intent was at play in this mystery.

    • Len V

      says:

      The last ACARS transmission from the aircraft gave a read out of fuel remaining on board. There was nothing suspicious. Apart from that it is simply not possible to secretly load fuel “to the gunnels”

  • Colin

    says:

    So the crash site has been found?? Nothing new here!!

  • Murray Howlett

    says:

    This was my speculation on this crash – written on 3 June 2018. Perhaps it is of interest.
    Also, while there has been speculation about the cause being suicide by pilot, has there ever been any reason suggested as to why the pilot would have wanted to commit suicide?

    MISSING MALAYSIAN AIRLINER

    There has been much speculation about the possible cause(s) of the loss of the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 MH370. Lately there seems to be a concentration on the possibility that some of the crew may have deliberately done something to cause the plane to go missing due to changes made to monitoring equipment and the unexplained course changes.

    This has even included the suggestion by one commentator that this might be a means of suicide by the flight crew.

    I would like to suggest an alternative possibility – albeit with as little evidence as the current speculation.

    The facts suggest that radio monitoring equipment was turned off and that there were changes made to the jet’s course and this definitely would involve human intervention. The suggestion is that this was deliberate but maybe this is not quite right.

    There was earlier speculation that there might be an issue with the fairings for the installation of satellite phones on this jet type that might possibly cause a slow cabin decompression. Indeed there apparently was an Airworthiness Directive issued about this concern by the US FAA.

    The effect of oxygen starvation can lead people to act irrationally without realizing it. This could explain human intervention actions. They may have been deliberate but also mistaken efforts by the crew to intervene before they lost consciousness. After they passed out the aircraft would continue on whatever course it was last set on until it ran out of fuel.

    Maybe this is what happened but we will only know when the jet is located and even then it will likely be months(maybe years) before this can be determined even is it is found right now.

  • Rob

    says:

    If the aircraft had been on autopilot until it ran out of fuel & crashed it would have broken up on impact leaving countless
    fragments of wreckage & baggage which would doubtlessly have washed up in large amounts on a coastline. Only a couple
    of items have been found & they were control surface pieces which likely would have come off if the aircraft experienced a ditching under pilot control when fuel was exhausted. The transponder had been switched off & the aircraft made a number of direction changes when near Indonesia-Thai border. This all indicates Pilot murder-suicide as the only
    logical conclusion.

  • See Victor Ianellos’s website https://mh370.radiantphysics.com for the ongoing discussions by experts about the research results. Their Mar 2020 paper provides a best estimate of a final endpoint based on the statistical probabilities of fuel exhaustion, wind patterns, and areas searched. These are all based on the presumption of an unpiloted straight flight path that can be optimized, the same strategy that drove the previous seafloor searches. Not taken into account in their report is undisputed new acoustic evidence that points to noise from a specific location on the 7th Arc off the coast of Java. The Java endpoint is supported by the seismic evidence for an MH370 flyby at Cocos Island and Christmas Island airports that matches with all factual evidence from satellite timing, drift analysis, and barnacle growth on the debris that has been found. Rather than a high altitude cruise path that assumes a normal flight to oblivion, the flyable path to the Java anomaly noise event implies a lower altitude (oxygen safe) flight at holding speed that follows navigational waypoints, just as earlier in the flight. For more details on the acoustic findings, please explore: https://370Location.org

  • AlanH

    says:

    It has all the hallmarks of oxygen deprivation, loss of consciousness, auto pilot flight and eventual fuel starvation leading to termination of the flight. The chances of finding the wreckage in that expanse of ocean are zilch. The one remaining hope is that no-one on board was conscious on impact. However, (there’s always one) would there not be an a sensor and alarm in the cockpit of a B777 to alert the flight crew to a drop in oxygen levels and/or pressurisation?

  • David

    says:

    I reckon it is off the bottom tip of India on the Western side .
    That fits with limited range at low level and backed up with the debris floating in of the Eastern shores of Africa ????

  • Dave

    says:

    Investigators need to look at a more logical explanation on why this plane has not been found. If it broke up on hitting the ocean, where are all the life jackets and other loose items? The fusilage is airtight and therefore is holding trapled air while the under belly would allow water to enter making the aircraft semi buoyant. It would be moving with the Indian Ocean current and will not sink to the ocean floor until corrosion opens the top skin allowing the trapped air to escape. However, that may then cause it to totally break up and the wreckage found on southern WA coast, the Grt. Aust. Bight or even NZ.

  • Vannus

    says:

    To Murray, above…..

    The ‘pilot suicide’ theory was postulated early on because his best friend had been arrested, his marriage was crumbling, & his mental state had been deteriorating.
    As you’d be aware, his was not the only ‘pilot suicide’ to have happened, as there’re instances, in the last several years’, including the Egypt Air pilot who was going to be sacked once his aircraft landed at CAI.

  • Roger Dunlop

    says:

    Not an expert here by any means, but if the plane was on auto and flying from KL to Beijing, how did it or would it end up in the Indian ocean? The only way this would happen is by a person/persons at the controls, surely. still a mystery.

  • Harry Prager

    says:

    Hate to inform you but MH370 will nver be found as its not in the ocean. I do know where it is or was and I am under oath to say nothing as its a politcal night mare.

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