A new study may have revealed the “precise location” of missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, 11 years after its disappearance. The Boeing 777 vanished while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, in Malaysia, to Beijing Capital International Airport, in China, in 2014, and has not been found since.
However, new ship-based high-resolution sonar data offers fresh hope for a breakthrough into the MH370 mystery. The data found an area of the Southern Indian Ocean that is much deeper than its surroundings and “inconsistent with natural seafloor features”, the study’s author said. Dr Vincent Lyne, a former researcher at the University of Tasmania, argued that this anomaly is the final resting place of MH370. It is located at the coordinates 33.02°S, 100.27°E – around 1,500 miles west of Perth, Australia.
This aligns with what Dr Lyne has called the Penang Longitude Deep Hole, a 19,685ft deep hole at the eastern end of Broken Ridge, a rugged and dangerous area in the Indian Ocean.
The retired researcher believes this supports his theory that the plane’s disappearance was “meticulously planned” by someone who wanted to crash it into the hole.
However, he argued, they appeared to have made a misjudgement, instead “hitting the side of the steep slope and sliding down”, resulting in the deaths of the presumed 239 onboard.
Dr Lyne claimed to have come “the closest researchers have come to solving the MH370 mystery”, though his findings have not yet been verified.
He called for “urgent action” to review the new data, which he called “the strongest direct physical evidence yet” of MH370s “precise location”.
Since its disappearance over a decade ago, over 30 pieces of MH370 have been collected along the coast of Africa and on islands in the Indian Ocean.
The official report from the investigation into the flight was released by the Malaysian government in 2018 and revealed that the plane’s controls were likely deliberately manipulated to take it off course, but could not identify the person responsible.
Last month, a British company launched what is likely to be the final search mission for the MH370. Marine robotics firm Ocean Infinity’s deep-water support vessel Armada 7806 arrived at a new search zone in the Indian Ocean, 1,200 miles off Perth, Australia, in late February to carry out a fresh search.