Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is likely still in one piece and located approximately 4 miles beneath the surface ocean, claims a Boeing pilot in an editorial on Sunday.
Byron Bailey, who flew B777 planes--the same type as Flight 370--attempted to debunk theories about the passenger jet’s disappearance in March. He writes that the plane is “so automated that if something happened to the Flight Crew, or even if they left the cockpit shortly after takeoff,” the plane is able to hit its destination with a “preprogrammed computer Flight Profile.”
He notes that if the plane crashed, there would be debris floating around, which hasn’t been the case for Flight 370.
Writes Bailey for the Daily Telegraph, “I am bemused by the media coverage given to self proclaimed experts — people who have never flown a modern fly-by-wire computerised glass cockpit airliner and yet offer speculation as to what happened to MH370.”
Bailey also adds that the plane--which is said to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean--will be discovered eventually.
“B777 is a very large aircraft and I personally believe that MH370 is intact and in 6000m (about 3.7 miles) of water. If we search long enough it will be found,” he writes.
“The ‘experts’ also stated that the aircraft might have flown slower and therefore flown further - hence more guessing as to the extent of the search area,” he adds, according to the Telegraph. He said those claims are “rubbish.”
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“For it to alter course and fly a different route as alleged would require the deliberate manual intervention of someone with considerable expertise of FMS protocols, which suggests a preplanned intention.”
Meanwhile, Australian officials are currently trying to figure out if and where debris from Flight 370, which disappeared March 8 with 239 people on board, could wash ashore.
There was initial speculation that the plane’s debris would wash up on the shores of Indonesia’s Western Sumatra four months after it disappeared.
“We are currently working ... to see if we can get an updated drift model for a much wider area where there might be possibilities of debris washing ashore,” search coordinator Peter Foley said, reported Reuters.
And Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) Chief Commissioner Martin Dolan has also dismissed suggestions there was a disagreement among five groups involved in the Flight 370 investigation that led to delays in the search.
“There is no disagreement, just the deliberate application of differing analysis models,” Dolan said.
Nearly 7,000 square kilometers have been searched for far, the ATSB said in a recent update.
The groups agreed that the final resting spot for Flight 370 is in the “7th arc” that stretches about 1,000 kilometers from Exmouth, Western Australia.
NEXT PAGE: See What Recent Malaysia Airlines Tweet Offended Many
Last week, Malaysia Airlines came under fire after it made a tweet that said, “Want to go somewhere, but don’t know where?”
The company removed the message, but it stressed that it was intended to inspire passengers to fly with the company and take advantage of new special deals.
However, some misconstrued it as referring to missing Flight 370 or possibly the disaster involving Flight 17, which crashed over Ukraine in July, killing everyone on board. US and European Union officials have blamed Russian-backed militants for shooting the plane down.
Twitter users sounded off on the message.
“@MAS seriously? That’s your tag line? Sheesh,” one person wrote.
Added another: “How Is It Possible That Malaysia Airlines Sent Out This Tweet?”
Another user said that the tweet was “probably not the best choice of words for an airline that doesn’t know where one of its planes is.”
Later, the company recognized its mistake and wrote: “@Tangogirl324 Our tweet was intended to inspire travellers to explore deals offered. We apologize for any offence caused & have removed it!”
“We’re touched by your gesture of support. It really means a lot to us. We hope you have a good evening!” the company also wrote.
In September, the firm came under fire for asking people what activities they wanted to accomplish on their “bucket list,” which is a term to described what adventures they want to have before they die.
“Considering a ‘bucket list’ is made up of things one wants to see or do before they die, and the two tragedies resulted in a total of 537 fatalities, it was probably not the most sensible title,” notes t UK’s Telegraph newspaper.
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