The MH370 Independent group that has been investigating and analysing the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines flight has established that the plane’s flight path near the Malaysian state of Penang was consistent with a navigation system that is fully operational.
“In order to better understand the sequence of inputs to the flight control system, we created a simulation using the PMDG 777 model in Microsoft Flight Simulator. In particular, we studied whether the aircraft might have been flown with the pilot providing inputs to the autopilot, and what those inputs might have been”, Victor Iannello, an investigator with the group, wrote.
Iannello, assisted by three Independent group members, suggested on his blog it was possible that the pilot tried to deceive radar operators into believing that the plane had intended to land.
“MH370’s flight path near Penang can be replicated with the autopilot engaged and the flight path near Penang is consistent with the image of the military radar data in the Malacca Strait that was never officially released. It is very unlikely that there was an intention to land at Penang Airport”, Iannello alleged.
The study’s findings somewhat coincide with a widely popular theory that one of the pilots was behind the plane’s disappearance. Aviation expert and former investigator with the Transportation Safety Board of Canada Larry Vance said last May he believed that the MH370 was intentionally flown into the ocean in an act of murder-suicide.
Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 with 239 passengers and crew on board went missing on 8 March 2014. After years of botched attempts to find the crash site, the Malaysian government halted the investigation, having admitted that they did not know what had happened to the airplane.
Despite an extensive search operation conducted jointly by Malaysian, Chinese and Australian investigators, only a few pieces of debris thought to be parts of the wreckage have been found at different locations, including South Africa, Mozambique, and the French Island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean.
READ MORE: Families of MH370 Passengers Call for Resuming Search Amid Finding of New Debris
In late November, several new pieces of debris allegedly belonging to the doomed MH370 airliner were reportedly discovered off the coast of Madagascar.
