The evidence revealed in this account of what happened clearly shows that MH370 disappeared because of the deliberate actions of a pilot. All of the evidence I used to explain what happened to MH370 was available to the official investigation, and yet they failed to uncover it.
It would be an understatement to say that the disappearance of MH370 was high profile. The fact that such a high profile investigation failed to uncover and disclose such basic evidence is cause for grave concern. What assurance can we have that future investigations will not suffer from equal ineffectiveness?
Some of the top air safety investigation agencies in the world were involved in the MH370 investigation. According to the authorities, the official accident investigation included experts from Malaysia, Australia, China, United Kingdom, United States and France.
There was also a criminal investigation side to the investigation, and it had equally impressive international representation, including by Interpol. There were other countries represented in some unofficial capacity. Many people around the world, some with claims of expertise, followed the investigation closely.
Despite the availability of all this expertise, the MH370 investigation was clearly deficient. It failed to recognize and properly interpret the evidence that was available. Lessons must be learned about what went wrong, and why it went wrong, and steps must be taken to prevent this from happening again. Once more, I am compelled to offer my thoughts.
By all accounts, the MH370 investigation was established according to international standards and agreements. When the airplane disappeared, it was the responsibility of Malaysia, the country where the airplane was registered, to take the lead. Other countries have obligations and entitlements to participate (such as the country where the airplane was manufactured, and where the engines were manufactured, etc.).
By international agreement, Malaysia was required to launch two parallel investigations. They must launch an independent safety investigation that looks for accident causation from a safety of flight perspective. They must also launch a separate criminal investigation, to look for criminal involvement. This parallel investigation setup is basically the same in every country. It is a necessary setup, and the proper setup, and I have no issue with it.
I have personally been involved in many investigations where the criminal side of the investigation maintained the lead role until a criminal act could be ruled out. In an airplane crash, it is normally easy to rule out any criminal intent. This usually happens quickly, and leadership of the investigation is turned over to the safety investigation.
It was a mistake when the Malaysian authorities failed to keep the investigation under the control of the criminal investigation. From the very beginning, there was at least the possibility of a criminal act. The safety investigation could have continued in parallel.
Airplane crashes can be problematic for criminal investigators, because they have no specific training or expertise to collect evidence in the aviation sphere. A criminal investigation is also constrained by the fact that evidence collected by safety investigators cannot be used in a criminal prosecution. To make up for their aviation-related expertise gap, the criminal investigation must hire outside experts to help them collect and interpret evidence.
What was lost when the investigation focus was shifted to a safety investigation was the opportunity for such outside experts to look at the evidence from a criminal perspective. Criminal investigators would instruct their experts to look at the recovered wreckage specifically for evidence of criminal actions. If they did their work competently, these outside experts would have reached different conclusions than those reached by the safety investigators.
When the investigation was turned over to the safety investigators, it seems the focus on looking for criminal involvement was lost. By the time the flaperon was found, the safety investigation had already declared that MH370 was an unpiloted airplane that ran out of fuel. It appears they examined the flaperon, and the section of the flap, with that evidence (bias) in mind.
It will be debated whether intentional deception could have played a part in why the evidence on the recovered wreckage pieces was not discovered and disclosed. When the ATSB released their update (in November 2016), which included their opinion that the flaps were retracted (up) at impact, I was shocked. How could they have missed such obvious evidence that actually pointed to the contrary?
It certainly looked like there was more to the story. Their conclusion at that time was a convenient fit with their rationale for continuing to search in the area where their calculations told them the wreckage would be. It provided justification for all the money spent, and for the further commitment of resources. It served the purposes of those who were dismissing the possibility of pilot involvement.
As I stated earlier, I find it difficult to believe that with all the expertise available to the MH370 investigation, nobody put the evidence together and presented it to those in charge. If that evidence was actually discovered and brought forward, and then suppressed, that would be intentional deception. If nobody discovered the evidence, that was incompetence. I believe it was incompetence.
Although MH370 was not an accident, all the elements of a typical accident investigation were employed. The primary purpose of an accident investigation is to discover safety deficiencies. The one overwhelming safety deficiency highlighted by the MH370 event is the inability of those involved to find and interpret obvious evidence.
In my work as an investigation consultant, I have opportunities to examine the work of numerous official investigation agencies, including the most highly regarded. I can assure you that the shortcomings in the MH370 investigation are not isolated to that event.
I do not mean to imply that all investigations miss the mark. Some excellent work is being done, and deficiencies are being uncovered, and safety actions are being taken. However, opportunities for safety improvements are being lost because investigators miss or misinterpret evidence.
I believe that an important safety deficiency is apparent. It is a deficiency in the accident investigation capabilities of those who took part in the MH370 investigation, and of investigation agencies generally.
I believe the identification of this deficiency provides an opportunity to assess the readiness of all investigation agencies. Every agency should be able to find and analyze the types of evidence presented in this book. This investigation work should not be beyond the capabilities of any agency that has an investigation mandate. What has been presented here is nothing more than basic accident investigation.
I address the following comments to government officials who have a responsibility to maintain an effective accident investigation response capability. They should make sure that the skills within their agency allow for the type of investigation analysis contained in this book. If the state of readiness was where it should be in accident investigation, every air safety investigator should not only be able to read and understand this book, they should be able to write it. As the MH370 investigation shows, you cannot just assume that the skills are there, even if your agency is recognized as world class.
I address the following comments to decision makers from the companies who are obliged to send experts to assist in an investigation. For MH370, these companies included Malaysia Airlines, Boeing, Rolls-Royce, etc. It is essential that the investigators sent from these companies have the necessary skills to identify and analyze basic evidence. The appropriate decision makers must take steps to ensure those skills are in place.
This book is directed at a wide audience, but allow me to address this short bit specifically to those who work as investigators, or who plan to work as investigators. The single greatest attribute for any investigator is curiosity. A burning curiosity should have motivated the MH370 investigators to not be satisfied until they had a complete understanding of every witness mark. They should have obsessed over all the possibilities for how each wreckage piece was created, and figured out how they all combined to tell a story. Curiosity alone should motivate every investigator to read this account of what happened. If you are an investigator, or plan to be one, and you are not curious enough to read this book and learn from it, then you are probably not a good fit for the profession.
All investigators need to be exposed to the investigation basics. Not everyone needs to be a specialist in every aspect of an investigation, but everyone should be able to understand the basics, and be able to contribute (at the very least, to be able to contribute curiosity). It takes a team of investigators with different skills to conduct a successful investigation. Everyone on the team can contribute to ensuring that all the appropriate questions are asked, and to ensuring that no answer is left unchallenged if any doubt about its accuracy remains.
To be effective, you do not need to be the loudest voice in the room. In fact, you should be wary of the loudest voices. Do not assume that those with the most forceful opinions are delivering the most accurate assessments. Seek out and work with those who have the expertise you need to satisfy your curiosity. Then check, and then double check.
An overactive ego can hurt your ability to find and assess evidence. I have seen this many times, even in myself. As the investigation progresses, it is hard to resist taking your best guess about what happened. You can then fall victim to looking only for evidence to prove yourself right, or to assessing evidence with a bias. You are more likely to do that if you have revealed your best guess to someone else within the team. I believe there were elements of this in the MH370 investigation.
If you have read all the way through to this point, I expect you agree with the evidence that shows an MH370 pilot intentionally ditched the airplane. This evidence is solid, but that does not mean that it will not be challenged. There are some fervent believers in the unpiloted airplane theory, or in some other theory, who will not easily be persuaded. I offer some tips on how to assess the inevitable push back that will come.
Numerous witness marks have been identified that point to an intentional controlled ditching, with the flaps extended (down). People may attempt to explain how one or more of these witness marks could have been produced in a different way than what I have explained.
Remember that any explanation that tries to counter my explanation for how an individual witness mark was made must account for all the other witness marks that are completely consistent with the one in question. Do not accept that someone has put into doubt the entire proof of a controlled ditching simply by attacking the validity of an individual witness mark. For example, if someone comes up with a different way to create the damage around the edges of the entry hole into the seal pan, ask them to explain their theory in the context of the pristine condition of the flap section, and the two directions of witness marking inside the seal pan. For their alternate theory to be valid, everything about it has to fit, the same way everything fits with the controlled ditching theory I have presented.
Each piece of evidence presented is consistent with, and is supported by, the other pieces of evidence. For example, the crushing damage on the endplate of the seal pan proves that there was a spanwise force created along the trailing edge of the right wing. The “V-shaped” black smudge witness marks show the relative positions of the flaperon and right outboard flap when that crushing damage occurred. The witness marks inside the seal pan show the movements of the recovered piece of the right outboard flap before it broke free from the wing. All of this evidence works together.
Perhaps someone will argue that the spanwise force was not created in a controlled ditching. They might suggest that a spanwise force could be created by the right wingtip striking the water while the airplane was in a steep right bank following an uncontrolled dive.
This is a good example of a theory being theoretically possible, but not applicable. It certainly is possible to create a spanwise force along the trailing edge of the right wing by striking the right wingtip into the water in a steep diving turn. However, that did not happen with MH370. There are several counter-arguments; here are two easy ones: that high-speed scenario does not account for the flaps being extended (down), or for how they got to the extended (down) position. Neither does it account for the evidence that proves the wings were level, including the trailing edge damage on the flaperon and flap section, and the twin pieces that were recovered, one from each wing.
To challenge the evidence presented here, people might come up with other theoretically possible ways to explain how some specific piece of evidence could have been created. If/when this happens, the proponents of the alternate theories should be challenged to fit their evidence into the entire stream of existing evidence. If their evidence does not fit with everything, then it can be dismissed. There is a world of difference between something being theoretically possible, and proving that it was actually a part of what happened.
As I mentioned in the introduction, I believe that when they study the evidence I have presented, the official investigation will abandon their unpiloted airplane theory. If they do not, they should be challenged. They should be asked to provide their own explanations for each of the witness marks that prove there was no unpiloted airplane. They should be reminded that at no point in their official investigation did they attempt to explain these numerous witness marks, or even to acknowledge their existence.
Tragic accidents almost always result in safety improvements, based on the safety deficiencies uncovered by the investigation. Recommendations are made, and safety barriers are put in place to make sure the same accident cannot happen again. Action can be taken to improve training, enhance procedures, and upgrade equipment and infrastructure.
MH370 was not an accident; it was a criminal act. The challenge with MH370 is to find a barrier that could prevent someone who already has direct control from carrying out an intentional act. How do you defend against a pilot who intends to destroy his or her own airplane? It is simple logic that you cannot stop someone from taking control if they already have control. This presents a significant challenge.
When an airplane is in flight, those on board are completely vulnerable to any evil-minded intent by a pilot. The inside of an airplane in flight is a unique environment; nothing else compares to it. Once the airplane is airborne, it is impossible to safely intervene from outside. The circumstances of MH370, and other rogue pilot events, show just how easy it is for a pilot, who already has complete control of the airplane, to take independent actions.
Following the crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 in 2015, several operators implemented a policy of having two people in the cockpit at all times. When a pilot leaves the cockpit, a flight attendant is called in. The thought is that this could prevent what happened on Flight 9525, where the captain left the cockpit and the co-pilot locked him out. The co-pilot then intentionally crashed the airplane.
Having a second person in the cockpit is a defense against the remaining pilot becoming incapacitated while alone, but against an intentional act it is a weak defence at best. It is not difficult to imagine how a motivated pilot could overcome that defense.
The Germanwings crash also energized ongoing studies into how to improve the psychological testing and monitoring of pilots. Hopefully, the information presented here will broaden the base of knowledge available for further research. I included my thoughts about the MH370 pilot’s motivation to ensure all potential avenues of research are considered.
The disappearance of MH370 has led to an increased focus on technologies that will allow real-time tracking of airplanes, regardless of where they are flying. Tracking systems that have been limited by the effective range of radar signals are being replaced by satellite data links that live stream location data from anywhere in the world.
Like everything else in the modern world of electronics, such tracking capabilities are leapfrogging ahead as bandwidth capacities increase, and costs decrease. This problem will soon be a thing of the past.
In writing for a wide audience, I have attempted to explain the evidence using non-technical terminology. I have also provided a peek behind the curtain at how professional investigators look for, and find, and assess, evidence.
In such a short piece of writing, it is difficult to provide a full appreciation for the countless hours of tedious and detailed work necessary to review every possible explanation for each piece of evidence. In a professional investigation environment, no theory is discounted until it has been proven to not fit with the facts. In the case of MH370, a pilot-controlled ditching is the only theory that fits with every piece of evidence.
Unlike in my previous writing, this book allowed me the freedom to use the language of certainty when those words best described what the evidence shows. You can see the evidence for yourself, and the analysis of that evidence is not particularly complicated. Now that you have seen the evidence, if you hear someone say that what happened to MH370 has not been solved, you will know they have not read this book.
Because we now have a definitive answer about what happened, the question about why it happened can be assessed with the appropriate perspective. The pilot’s motivation can be looked at with the knowledge that he planned for each aspect of the flight.
The pilot knew exactly what he was going to be doing during each stage of the flight, from the time of departure all the way to the controlled ditching. It is clear he knew what the consequences would be: certain death for everyone in the airplane. It is also clear that whatever forces were driving him to carry out his planned actions, they exceeded whatever capacity he had for self-restraint.
The evidence confirms that the airplane is at the bottom of the southern Indian Ocean. It is in a location specifically chosen by the pilot to make it un-findable. The fuselage of the airplane is basically intact, and all the occupants are still inside.
A valid question is, will MH370 ever be found? My answer is that it probably will be found someday, but most likely it will be a long time from now. It will rest where it is until eventually someone finds it by using a technology that has not yet been invented.
In my view, it is unrealistic to conduct any further searches. As discussed earlier, without the certainties of the unpiloted airplane theory, there are too many variables to allow realistic calculations about where to look.
The good news is that we do not need to find the airplane to solve what happened. Fortunately, the pilot’s plan to make the airplane disappear was not perfect. Satellite communication technology, and drift modelling, provided the means to discover that the airplane went to the southern Indian Ocean. Fate gave us the exact wreckage pieces required to prove that the flaps were extended during a pilot-controlled ditching.
With that, we have all the evidence we need to solve the mystery of MH370. We know that this event was not caused by some defect in the airplane, or by some unknown intervention. We know that the pilot took it, and we know how he took it, and we know where he took it, and we know it was all deliberate and well planned.
There is no longer any mystery about what happened to MH370. With this book, the mystery of MH370 is solved.