A leading air crash expert on Monday said the missing Malaysia Airlines fight MH370 was likely to have been in controlled flight as it hit the water, giving life to the theory that it was brought down by a rogue pilot or hijacker.
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Speaking to 60 Minutes Australia, Larry Vance said that erosion discovered on the edges of recovered wing parts indicate the plane was intentionally lowered before crashing into the ocean.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has previously determined that four pieces of debris it examined nearly certainly came from the plane, and another wing part found a year ago on La Reunion island, off the African coast, was positively identified by French officials.
Mr Vance added that the inability of investigators to find floating debris and lifejackets fits the theory of a slow, controlled landing.
More than 200 passengers and crew aboard Flight 370 were lost on March 8, 2014, when the Boeing 777 jetliner vanished from radar screens on a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
The flaperon found last year is now being examined by French investigators while Malaysian aviation authorities say they have been unable to take possession of it, a year after its discovery.
“The best minds that are available have been working on this and I remain positive and I remain hopeful it will be found”, he said.
Several pieces of aircraft wreckage have washed up on beaches in Africa and been positively identified as coming from MH370 but they shed little light on the mystery.
The scientists from the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change has been analyzing the presented data for two years now in hopes of forecasting where the plane crashed given the current and wind conditions of the Indian Ocean and Southern Ocean.
‘There is a possibility there was someone in control at the end and we’re actively looking for evidence to support that, ‘ he said. Whatever findings now are not conclusive until we recover the black box which will tell us what actually happened.
“She told me it was very awful that somebody would do this to 238 innocent people”. It has always been believed that the plane crashed into the ocean in the remote region plotted on the simulator.
Watch Part One of the 60 Minutes Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 investigative report in the video below.
Another piece of evidence, a wing part recently found in Tanzania, was being analysed to determine if it was extended at the end of the flight. “An aircraft that goes out of control at 30,000 feet will hit the water with tremendous impact”.
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He said that the flaperon, found in 2015 and confirmed as being from right wing of the downed plane, was in the extended position – otherwise known as the landing position.
