Experts believe Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was likely the target of a deliberate effort to steer it off course toward Antarctica.
The doomed aircraft took three sharp turns in the 90 minutes after air traffic controllers lost contact with the pilots, seasoned crash investigators revealed in a new documentary.
The bizarre twists would have spun the flight roughly 180 degrees, and the evidence “strongly suggests” the new path was no accident, said experts after reviewing satellite information.
“It is conceivable that a pilot could deliberately de-pressurize the airplane that is part of an effort to hijack the airplane or take it for some purpose,” aviation expert Malcolm Brenner said.
The surprising theory is part of National Geographic’s “Air Crash Investigation: Malaysian 370: What Happened?” set to air March 8.
The Beijing-bound plane disappeared exactly a year before with 239 people on board.
Silent “pings” following MH370’s disappearance lead analysts to believe it continued on long after pilots stopped corresponding with air traffic controllers.
The lack of radio transmissions make another catastrophe, such as a fire, unlikely, experts said.
Despite a massive effort, searchers have yet to find any trace of the Boeing 777, baffling aviation experts who consider it one of the greatest aeronautical mysteries of all time, on par with the disappearance of pioneering female pilot Amelia Earhart.
“This accident has caught the attention of the world in a way that I have not seen in a 40-year career in aviation,” Brenner said.
