A Tasmanian scientist has claimed he knows the location of the missing Malaysian plane MH370.
In 2014, Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 vanished from radar after departing from Kuala Lumpur. Among the 239 passengers on board the craft, the majority, 153 were Chinese, six were Australians, and three were Americans. One of the Americans included Philip Wood, an IBM executive, according to the BBC. Also on the plane were 20 staff members from the U.S. technology company Freescale Semiconductors; 12 were Malaysian, and eight were Chinese.
But now, Tasmanian researcher Vincent Lyne has said he may know their location.
Last week, Lyne posted on Linkedin that his 2021 research paper on the plane's missing location is being accepted into the Journal of Navigation.
"This work," he wrote, "changes the narrative of MH370's disappearance from one of no-blame, fuel-starvation at the 7th arc, high-speed dive, to a mastermind pilot almost executing an incredible perfect-disappearance in the Southern Indian Ocean."
"In fact, it would have worked were it not for MH370 ploughing its right wing through a wave, and the discovery of the regular interrogation satellite communications by Inmarsat — a brilliant discovery also announced in the Journal of Navigation."
Lyne, a researcher at the University of Tasmania's Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, said that damage to the plane's wings, flaps, and flaperon suggests that it was involved in a "controlled ditching," maneuver, similar to the one made by Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger on the Hudson River in 2009.
"This justifies beyond doubt the original claim, based on brilliant, skilled, and very careful debris-damage analyses, by decorated former Chief Canadian Air-crash Investigator Larry Vance, that MH370 had fuel and running engines when it underwent a masterful 'controlled ditching' and not a high-speed fuel-starved crash."
"But encouragingly," he added, "we now know very precisely that MH370 is where the longitude of Penang airport (the runway no less) intersects the Pilot-in-Command home simulator track discovered and discarded by the FBI and officials as 'irrelevant.'
"That premeditated iconic location harbors a very deep 6000 [meter] 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.
Nonetheless, he concluded, "whether it will be searched or not is up to officials and search companies, but as far as science is concerned, we know why the previous searches failed and likewise science unmistakably points to where MH370 lies. In short, the MH370 mystery has been comprehensively solved in science!"
Lyne's claims come months after a U.S.-based deep-sea exploration company announced that it had the capability to conduct the most extensive search yet for the missing aircraft.