Deep Mystery: Looking For MH370

Researchers at the Dutch company leading the underwater hunt for Malaysia Airlines jet MH370 say they believe the plane may have glided down rather than dived in the final moments, meaning they have been scouring the wrong patch of ocean for two years.

Flight MH370 disappeared in March 2014 with 239 passengers and crew on route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur. Searchers led by engineering group Fugro have been combing an area roughly the size of Greece for two years.

That search, over 120,000 square kilometres of the southern Indian Ocean off Western Australia, is expected to end in three months and could be called off after that following a meeting of key countries Malaysia, China and Australia on Friday. So far, nothing has been found.

"If it's not there, it means it's somewhere else," Fugro project director Paul Kennedy told Reuters.

While Mr. Kennedy does not exclude extreme possibilities that could have made the plane impossible to spot in the search zone, he and his team argue a more likely option is the plane glided down - meaning it was manned at the end - and made it beyond the area marked out by calculations from satellite images. "If it was manned it could glide for a long way," Mr. Kennedy said. "You could glide it for further than our search area is, so I believe the logical conclusion will be well maybe that is the other scenario."

Doubts that the search teams are looking in the right place are likely to fuel calls for all data to be made publicly available so that academics and rival companies can pursue an "open source" solution - a collaborative public answer to the mystery.

Fugro's controlled glide hypothesis is also the first time officials have lent some support to contested theories that someone was in control during the flight's final moments.

Since the crash there have been competing theories over whether one, both or no pilots were in control, whether it was hijacked - or whether all aboard perished and the plane was not controlled at all when it hit the water. Adding to the mystery, investigators believe someone may have deliberately switched off the plane's transponder before diverting it thousands of miles.

However, the glide hypothesis is not supported by the investigating agencies: America's Boeing Co, France's Thales SA, US investigator the National Transportation Safety Board, British satellite company Inmarsat PLC, the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch and the Australian Defence Science and Technology Organisation.

The meeting between officials from China, Australia and Malaysia is expected to discuss the future of the search. The three governments have previously agreed that unless any new credible evidence arises the search would not be extended, despite calls from victims' families.

Any further search would require a fresh round of funding from the three governments on top of the almost A$180 million ($137 million) that has already been spent, making it the most expensive in aviation history.

Deciding the search area in 2014, authorities assumed the plane had no "inputs" during its final descent, meaning there was no pilot or no conscious pilot. They believe it was on auto-pilot and spiraled down when it ran out of fuel.

But Kennedy said a skilled pilot could glide the plane approximately 120 miles (193 km) from its cruising altitude after running out of fuel. One pilot told Reuters it would be slightly less than that.

For the aircraft to continue gliding after fuel has run out, someone must manually put the aircraft into a glide - nose down with controlled speed.

"If you lose all power, the auto-pilot kicks out. If there is nobody at the controls, the aircraft will plummet down," said a captain with experience of flying Boeing 777s - the same as MH370.

Like all pilots interviewed for this story, he declined to be named given the controversy around the lost jet.

Telegraph:

 

« ‘Dropping Elephant’ Is A New Cyber Espionage Group
Phineas Fisher Fingered: Hacking the Turkish Government »

CyberSecurity Jobsite
Check Point

Directory of Suppliers

ZenGRC

ZenGRC

ZenGRC (formerly Reciprocity) is a leader in the GRC SaaS landscape, offering robust and intuitive products designed to make compliance straightforward and efficient.

Practice Labs

Practice Labs

Practice Labs is an IT competency hub, where live-lab environments give access to real equipment for hands-on practice of essential cybersecurity skills.

Authentic8

Authentic8

Authentic8 transforms how organizations secure and control the use of the web with Silo, its patented cloud browser.

BackupVault

BackupVault

BackupVault is a leading provider of automatic cloud backup and critical data protection against ransomware, insider attacks and hackers for businesses and organisations worldwide.

Resecurity

Resecurity

Resecurity is a cybersecurity company that delivers a unified platform for endpoint protection, risk management, and cyber threat intelligence.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is a global law firm with a track record of successfully supporting the world's leading corporations, financial institutions and governments.

Fortinet

Fortinet

Fortinet is a provider of network security systems. Our products provide protection against dynamic security threats while simplifying the IT security infrastructure.

CertiKit

CertiKit

CertiKit produce toolkit products that accelerate the adoption of ISO/IEC standards, including ISO 27001, helping organizations all over the world to realize the benefits as soon as possible.

Anomali

Anomali

Anomali delivers intelligence-driven cybersecurity solutions to enhance threat visibility, automate threat processing and detection, and accelerate threat investigation, response, and remediation.

Technology Industries of Finland (TIF)

Technology Industries of Finland (TIF)

Technology Industries of Finland (TIF) is a business and labour market lobbying organization that promotes the competitiveness and business conditions of Finland’s most crucial export industry.

Executive Women's Forum (EWF)

Executive Women's Forum (EWF)

The Executive Women's Forum is the largest member organization serving emerging leaders and influential female executives in the Information Security, Risk Management and Privacy industries.

SecuPi

SecuPi

SecuPi delivers data-centric security with data-flow discovery, real-time monitoring, behavior analytics, and protection across web and enterprise applications and big data environments.

Upstream Security

Upstream Security

Upstream Security is the first cloud-based cyber-security solution that protects the technologies and applications of connected and autonomous vehicles.

Research Institute in Verified Trustworthy Software Systems (VeTSS)

Research Institute in Verified Trustworthy Software Systems (VeTSS)

The main purpose of VeTSS is to support program analysis, testing and verification, to achieve guarantees of software correctness, safety, and security.

Berezha Security Group (BSG)

Berezha Security Group (BSG)

BSG is a cybersecurity consulting firm specializing in all aspects of application security and penetration testing.

Kintent

Kintent

With Kintent, compliance becomes a habit, is simple to understand and achieve, and is continuously testable so that your customers can see that you are adhering to all your trust obligations.

Fusion Risk Management

Fusion Risk Management

Fusion Risk Management focuses on operational resilience encompassing business continuity, risk management, IT risk, and crisis and incident management.

Kennedys

Kennedys

Kennedys is a global law firm with expertise in litigation/dispute resolution and advisory services, particularly in the insurance/reinsurance and liability sectors, including cyber risk.

Mage Data

Mage Data

Mage (formerly Mentis Software) is a leading solutions provider for data security and data privacy software for global enterprises.

Certo Software

Certo Software

Certo are trusted experts in mobile security. At Certo, mobile security is not an afterthought, it’s what we do.

Cyber Security Global

Cyber Security Global

Cyber Security Global is a leader in electronic security, consultancy, technology, cybersecurity solutions, training, and specialized products.