2 years wasted searching for MH370 in wrong area, says Aussie pilot

Malaysia Airlines MH370 has not been found because the search area is several hundred kilometres or more off the mark, says an Australian veteran commercial pilot. In an article in The Australian, Byron Bailey criticised the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) for wasting two years searching for the missing Boeing 777 by relying on a “nonsensical end-of-flight theory”, which resulted in the search area being several hundred kilometres or more too far to the north and east. Bailey spent 15 years as a senior captain in Emirates and had flown the same model Boeing 777 passenger jet as the MH370 flight and was a former Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) fighter pilot and trainer. “I and my coterie of colleagues – highly experienced airline and former airline pilots from A380 Qantas, B777 British Airways, Emirates B777/A380 and others – think the ATSB dropped the ball with the nonsensical end-of-flight theory and as a result the search area is several hundred kilometres or more too far to the north and east. “This is why MH370 has not yet been located. Two years wasted. The search area has now progressed south and west, getting closer to the probable correct area,” he said in the broadsheet today. “If MH370 is not found in the remaining few months and the search is suspended due to cost, which overall must now be well more than AUS$200 million (RM604 million) of taxpayers’ money, then MH370 will pass into legend like the ghost ship Mary Celeste. “A movie will probably be made. The ATSB will not be in the credits. I wonder what the title would be? ‘The longest and costliest search in aviation history’ or ‘the biggest farce in aviation history’.” Bailey asked why ATSB did not consider the theory that the pilot could have been responsible for the missing flight despite Tim Clark, chief executive of Emirates, the largest B777operator, stating that pilots should not be able to turn off communication and tracking equipment in flight. “Why didn’t the ATSB consider the obvious rogue pilot theory? Not even after the head of Emirates – the largest B777 operator and my former boss – stated on live television that MH370 was flown under control for 7½ hours and that pilots should not be able to turn off communication and tracking equipment in flight? “Why didn’t the ATSB take note of this very important statement? “The ATSB consistently has stated that the evidence does not support a controlled ditching. Well, it is the lack of evidence that supports a controlled ditching. Where is the debris?” Bailey described the ATSB’s “end-of-flight theory” as utter nonsense, saying that without an autopilot or a pilot to keep the wings level, the aircraft would roll into a spiral dive and hit the sea 90 seconds later at 1,200kph, exploding into masses of debris. “The Air France flight 447, an Airbus A330 that crashed in the Atlantic in June 2009, pancaked in at low speed in a stall and still had significant debris. “A huge aircraft hitting the sea with 15 times the kinetic energy would result in so much debris that some would float indefinitely – I was told this by experts at the Sydney Airport emergency ditching simulator who train pilots and cabin crew in life jacket and life raft drill and sea survival,” he said, adding that surely after two years, the wind and currents would have caused some items to wash up ashore. However, to date, only the flaperon has been found on Reunion Island, and a yet to be confirmed discovery this week on a Mozambique beach of some sheet metal, which has been flown to Australia for testing. “The ATSB consistently has stated that the evidence does not support a controlled ditching. What evidence? “All we have as real evidence is the fuel on board at take-off at Kuala Lumpur and that MH370 ended up in the southern Indian Ocean.” MH370 vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 227 passengers and 12 crew members in March 2014. – March 5, 2016.