MH370 Theory: Pilots Tried Landing In Malaysia While Plane Was On Fire

As the mystery behind the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 continues, a new claim states the pilots made desperate attempts to land the plane in Malaysia while the jet was on fire. The latest claim by an ex-United Airlines captain comes amid growing theories about what might have happened to the Boeing 777-200 while it was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.

Ross Aimer, CEO of Aero Consulting Experts, believes the MH370 pilots flew the plane off course in an attempt to come down at a Malaysian airport after they realized something was wrong with the airline. It is believed that a fire broke out due to the overheating of the batteries on board the plane.

"The initial turn, whatever they did to get off the airway, I think they may have initially tried to go to Penang Airport", he told Daily Star. "And while they were going towards it I think they either lost consciousness or they died, and then the aircraft went that way... And for some other reason it made another left turn, going south towards the south Indian Ocean."

Aimer believes the plane flew on auto-pilot till it ran out of fuel and crashed in a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean. He also said MH370 would not have been capable of landing at Penang Airport on auto-pilot without the control of the pilots.

Aimer, who flies a private jet, continued: "I can't explain the second left turn, but I would tell myself maybe they originally started making the turn thinking 'I want to get towards ground on fire, I've lost my oxygen', whatever it was, towards land because obviously you don't want to crash in water."

"You want to get back towards land and perhaps find a big airport... It's possible the pilots started going towards there thinking it's got a long runway, and we have a crippled airplane. You want to have a long runway, or like a military base or something like that," he said.

Aimer went on to say: "The fire that I'm thinking of, if the fire got into the oxygen system, that's the worst thing that could have happened because they had no chance, it would have been really quick... By itself, without the pilot, the plane could not have landed. If the pilots were alive and kicking they could have programmed the auto-pilot to go and land in that airport. But you kind of head towards there but you've lost consciousness, so you can't finish the job."

However, as there was no evidence provided by Aimer to back his theory, International Business Times cannot independently verify the claims.

Flight MH370 went missing 40 minutes after it took off from Malaysia with 239 people on board. Despite a multimillion-dollar search for the plane for four years, there has been no concrete clues to explain its mysterious disappearance. The biggest lead in the investigation came when a plane flaperon was found by villagers in the French island of Réunion. Possible wreckages had also turned up on the shorelines of Africa, Mozambique, and Mauritius. Investigators, in a report, said 27 pieces of the wreckage were believed to be from MH370, though only three were confirmed as parts belonging to the plane.

In July, Malaysia released a report saying investigators failed to determine what happened to Flight MH370. However, it added that a “third-party interference” couldn’t be ruled out.

Since the plane went missing several theorists tried to unravel the mystery. The most recent conspiracy theory suggested that the plane was hijacked so the organs of passengers on board the plane could be harvested. However, like most other theories that have surfaced, the latest one also could not be confirmed. Some claimed the pilot of the plane took the aircraft into a "death-dive" in a murder-suicide incident, but authorities rejected the theory.