The search has resumed for missing Flight MH370, while an expert has shared his view that the plane could be stuck in a notoriously deep and dangerous part of the ocean he has described as the ‘perfect hiding place’
More than a decade on from the day it vanished, the search has resumed for missing Flight MH370, and it’s believed the jet could be stuck in an eerie ‘black hole’ in the Indian Ocean.
In the early hours of March 8, 2014, Flight MH370 set off from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, carrying 239 souls onboard, setting into motion one of the most perplexing and devastating mysteries of modern times.
For the first 40 minutes, everything seemed perfectly normal aboard the Malaysia Airlines passenger jet – from the ground, at least. At 01:19 (Malaysian Time), air traffic control received one final message from the cockpit, commanded by senior pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah, and first officer, Fariq Hamid, stating, “goodnight Malaysian three seven zero.”
There, mere seconds after the Boeing 777 crossed over into Vietnamese airspace, it disappeared off the radar, never to be seen or heard from again. All subsequent attempts to make contact failed, and what happened in the sky that day remains a mystery.
Now, a retired researcher has come forward with a, as of yet unverified theory, that the plane wreckage lies in the narrow yet notoriously deep Penang Longitude Deep Hole, located at the eastern end of Broken Ridge – a particularly dangerous part of the Indian Ocean.
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Dr Vincent Lyne, a former researcher at the University of Tasmania, has claimed to have uncovered what he believes could be the missing wreckage in the form of a single yellow pixel, which he has described as an “anomaly” in a global terrain model for the ocean.
GEBCO bathymetric data – digital mapping of the ocean floor in layman’s terms – observed by Dr 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 said: “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.
“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.
He believes this new supports his theory that the plane’s disappearance was “meticulously planned” by someone who wanted to crash it into the crater.
Dr Lyne has described the Broken Ridge as “a very rugged and dangerous ocean environment with narrow steep sides, surrounded by massive ridges and other deep holes”.
Reiterating his theory that the incident was premeditated, he stated: “That pre-meditated iconic location harbours a very deep 6000m [3¾-mile] 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.”
Dr Lyne isn’t the only expert who believes the tragedy could have been deliberate. In the 2024 BBC documentary, Why Planes Vanish: The Hunt for MH370, Jean Luc Marchand, a former manager of Air Traffic Control, and retired pilot Patrick Blelly used a Boeing 777 simulator to reenact the last known flight pattern of the doomed craft.
Upon analysis, Marchand and Blelly pointed to the area where communications dropped off, right above the Malacca Strait, suggesting that the plane was deliberately flown into a “black hole” by an experienced pilot who knew exactly what they were doing.
Marchand explained: “Now the aircraft is invisible and not traceable any more. It’s clever because the choice of the area where the aircraft disappeared is really a black hole between Kuala Lumpur and Vietnam. If you want to disappear, this is where you do it.”
He continued: “This u-turn is a very challenging manoeuvre because they had to make sure that it disappeared quickly from the Vietnamese sector.
“It demands attention and skill so that’s why we believe it was not an accident…we’re convinced that only an experienced pilot could do it – they took care to be invisible, not traceable, to not be followed.”
Malaysia later dismissed theories of a murder-suicide mission on the part of the pilots, arguing that there was no evidence to support this narrative. Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak told Free Malaysia Today that, although this line of inquiry had never been ruled out, it would be “unfair and legally irresponsible” to blame Zaharie, given that the black boxes had never been recovered.
Others believe MH370 could have been hijacked by someone with knowledge of how to fly a plane, citing the sudden sharp U-turn noted by experts such as Marchand as evidence. After passing waypoint IGARI – the final checkpoint within Malaysian airspace – at around 1:21 am local time, the plane then made a seemingly aggressive 180-degree turn, journeying in the opposite direction towards the Malay peninsula.
There was then a climb and acceleration, with the place reaching the limit of its flight envelope. As MH370 flew back in the direction of Malaysia, turning northwest up the Malacca Strait, it kept right in the middle of Flight Information Regions (FIRs), flying along the boundaries between Malaysian and Vietnamese-controlled airspace and Malaysian and Thai-controlled airspace. At each point, both Malaysia and Vietnam believed the other country to have been in charge of the plane.
Previous enormous search efforts resulted in no significant finds, apart from some debris which had drifted to the East African coastline and nearby islands. A 2018 attempt by Ocean Infinity also failed to make headway in the case.
It’s long been assumed that the plane plunged into the southern Indian Ocean, with satellite data suggesting an off-course southerly trajectory.
Malaysian ministers have now greenlit a “no-find, no-fee” deal with Texas-based Ocean Infinity, outlining a new search zone covering 15,000 square kilometres (5,800 square miles), as announced by Transport Minister Anthony Loke on Wednesday, March 19. The firm could earn $70 million if the plane is found.
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