MH370 News: Missing Plane Crashed North Of Search Zone, Study Claims

A new study revealed that the probable crash site of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 was near 25 degrees south in the Indian Ocean, north of where most of the search operations took place.

The study was conducted by oceanographers at the University of Miami and the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (UM) in Florida. The researchers applied “probabilistic tools from nonlinear dynamics” on all the information available about the disappearance of the flight. This included data on the “trajectories of unanchored drifting buoys from NOAA's Global Drifter Database.”

Research was also done on the “oceanographic conditions” of the location where the debris of the aircraft was found along the coast of Madagascar, Mauritius, Reunion Island and coastal East African countries.

Philippe Mironm, the study's lead author, said, "Monsoons play an important role in the dynamics of the Indian Ocean. It's a crucial piece of the puzzle to locate the most probable crash site since its influence on the dispersion of floating debris is quite significant."

The Malaysian Airlines flight traveling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing went missing March 8, 2014 with 239 people on board. It was believed the aircraft crashed in a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean after losing contact with air traffic controllers. Its search operation, which was the most expensive in the aviation history, was called off by Malaysia, China and Australia, the three countries involved in the search, in 2017 after failing to locate the airplane.

In July 2018, a report was released by the lead investigator of the case which stated that the flight deviated from its path "not because of anomalies in the mechanical system. The turn back was made not under autopilot but under manual control.”

Several conspiracy theories have come up ever since the aircraft went missing. Some claimed its pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, was likely behind the plane's disappearance in a "murder-suicide mission." The pilot’s family, however, rejected the claims. Some theories also said that lithium-ion batteries in the cargo of the aircraft caught fire shortly after the flight took off. However, none of the theories were confirmed.

On the fifth anniversary of the flight’s mysterious disappearance, Malaysia’s transport minister Anthony Loke said the government was open to new proposals in order to restart the search for the flight.