Dr Lyne, a former University of Tasmania researcher, has previously theorised that MH370’s disappearance was not an accident but due to the actions of pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah
A scientist has claimed to have discovered the wreckage of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 which vanished 11 years ago during a flight to Beijing.
The Boeing 777 disappeared somewhere over the southern Indian Ocean with 239 people onboard, 40 minutes after departing Kuala Lumpur International Airport in 2014. The incident has become one of the most widely-speculated aviation mysteries as several multi-national rescue operations have produced no conclusive results, with costs climbing into hundreds of millions of pounds.
But, now, a retired research scientist claims to have uncovered what he believes to be the missing wreckage in the form of a single yellow pixel, described as an “anomaly” in a global terrain model for the ocean. The flight’s cabin crew last communicated with air traffic control roughly 38 minutes after takeoff when the flight was over the South China Sea, leading to initial searches to be in this region.
GEBCO bathymetric data – essentially digital mapping of the ocean floor – observed by Vincent Lyne pinpoints the yellow spec at Latitude: 33.02°S, Longitude: 100.27°E, aligning with the longitude of the southwestern end of Penang Airport. Dr Lyne calls this alignment the Penang Longitude Deep Hole – a 19,685ft crater at the eastern end of Broken Ridge, a rugged and dangerous area in the Indian Ocean.
“Hidden deep in the vast ocean where Broken Ridge meets the Diamantina Fracture Zone, a single bright pixel has emerged – pinpointing the wreckage with unprecedented accuracy,” Dr Lyne explains. “At 5,750 meters deep, it stood out as an extreme anomaly pointing to the potential MH370 crash site. Yet, inconsistencies in blended sonar and satellite altimeter data introduced some location uncertainty, despite the unmistakable extreme anomaly.”
Dr Lyne, a former University of Tasmania researcher, has previously theorised that MH370’s disappearance was not an accident but rather the pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, from Penang, intentionally plunged the aircraft into the 20,000-foot-deep Broken Ridge. The mystery remains the world’s single largest aircraft disappearance.
The retired research further alleges the deep hole in the ocean he has highlighted is “inconsistent with natural seafloor features”, believing this supports his theory that the plane’s disappearance was “meticulously planned” by someone who wanted to crash it into the hole.
In December 2024, the Malaysian government agreed in principle to resume the search for the missing passenger jet. The drafts earmark a £56m deal with the US-based marine exploration firm Ocean Infinity to aid the search.
