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Topics: World News
Jess Hardiman
A British aviation expert believes he has solved the mystery of where flight MH370 crashed in 2014, claiming there are clues to suggest that the pilot was ‘being followed’.
The Malaysia Airlines flight was carrying 239 people when it vanished into thin air, having been travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on 8 March 2014.
Despite extensive international search efforts ever since, the wreckage of the plane has never been found.
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But Richard Godfrey, a retired aerospace engineer and physicist, believes he has the answers, having used Weak Signal Propagation Reporter analysis to track the plane’s final route, examining disturbances it made in radio frequencies.
Godfrey found ‘strange’ patterns in the aircraft’s journey, including 360-degree turns over the ocean.
The aircraft also entered an unusual 20-minute holding pattern – which is when the pilot keeps the plane in a pattern within a specified airspace, often to wait for further clearance to proceed – three hours into the journey.
These unusual details, he claims, supports the theory that pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah had taken the plane off course deliberately.
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In a new interview with 60 Minutes Australia, Godfrey said: “Everyone has assumed up until now there was a straight path, perhaps even on autopilot.
“I believe there was an active pilot for the whole flight.”
Godfrey said the holding pattern may suggest the pilot had stopped to make contact with Malaysian authorities, even though the government claims contact with flight MH370 ceased just 38 minutes after it took off.
"It's strange to me, if you're trying to lose an aircraft in the most remote part of the Southern Indian Ocean, that you [would] enter a holding pattern.
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"He may have been communicating with the Malaysian government, he may have been checking whether he was being followed. He may have just simply wanted time to make up his mind, where he would go from here.
“I hope that if there was any contact with Malaysian authorities that after eight years now they'd be willing to divulge that.”
Danica Weeks, whose husband Paul was one of the hundreds believed to have died when the plane disappeared, initially believed there had been a mechanical failure, but now thinks the crash was an act of murder.
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In light of Godfrey’s findings, the mother-of-two is calling for a renewed search to ‘join the dots’.
She told the programme: “If this isn't worth another search, then I don't know what is.
“I have done my research on it, and it looks so promising. I get goosebumps. I look at it, and I think, this is it.
“It has been such a long time with no closure, no answers. There's no day I don't think about it. I promised Pauly I would bring him home. I still haven't fulfilled that.”
Godfrey also believes that another search would settle the mystery once and for all, saying: “In my view, there’s no reason why we shouldn't be preparing a new search and planning for that.”
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He added: “It will only take one more search, and we will find it.”
In a statement issued last week, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau described Godfrey’s work ‘credible’, but has not launched a new investigation.
ATSB Chief Commissioner Angus Mitchell said: “The ATSB is aware of the work of Mr Richard Godfrey and acknowledges that he is a credible expert on the subject of MH370, but the ATSB does not have the technical expertise to, and has not been requested to, review his ‘MH370 Flight Path’ paper and workings.
“As such the ATSB cannot offer an assessment of the validity of Mr Godfrey’s work using WSPR data.
“The ATSB does acknowledge that Mr Godfrey’s work recommends a search zone for MH370, a significant portion of which covers an area searched during the ATSB-led underwater search.”