MH370 may not be in the Indian Ocean

Leading airlines chief says MH370 was under control probably until the very end.

PETALING JAYA: Conspiracy theories abound about what happened to missing jet MH370 but now the respected head of one of the world’s leading airlines said he believed the plane was not on autopilot at the end and may not even be in the Indian Ocean.

Emirates Airlines chief Tim Clark told a German magazine that the failure to find any debris from MH370 raised a “degree of suspicion”.

Clark made the controversial comments in an interview with German magazine Der Spiegel.

“MH370 was, in my opinion, under control, probably until the very end,” he said.

His theory goes against current thinking that the aircraft was on autopilot until it ran out of fuel and crashed into the southern Indian Ocean.

He added, “Our experience tells us that in water incidents, where the aircraft has gone down, there is always something.

“We have not seen a single thing that suggests categorically that this aircraft is where they say it is, apart from this so-called electronic satellite ‘handshake’, which I question as well.”

The plane that disappeared was a Boeing 777 and Emirates operates 127 such aircraft, more than any other airline.

Clark said he was suspicious of the fact that no-one seemed to know where the plane ended up.

“There hasn’t been one over-water incident in the history of civil aviation – apart from Amelia Earhart in 1939 – that has not been at least 5 or 10% trackable.

“But MH370 has simply disappeared. For me, that raises a degree of suspicion. I’m totally dissatisfied with what has been coming out of all of this,” he told the magazine.

Sky News reported Tim calling for more transparency in the investigation.

He said, “There is plenty of information out there, which we need to be far more forthright, transparent and candid about.

“Every single second of that flight needs to be examined up until it, theoretically, ended up in the Indian Ocean – for which they still haven’t found a trace, not even a seat cushion.”

Australian Danica Weeks lost her husband Paul on the flight.

In response to comments from Clark, she told Channel 9 news: “He’s the man in the know, so why aren’t they talking to us? And what is all the silence about?”

Earlier this week the Australian Transportation Safety Bureau (ATSB) said latest analysis suggested the Malaysia Airlines flight went into a slow left turn and spiralled into the Indian Ocean when its fuel ran out.

An interim report pointed investigators towards the southern section of the current search zone.

“MH370 remains one of the great aviation mysteries. Personally, I have the concern that we will treat it as such and move on,” the airline chief told Der Spiegel.

“At the most, it might then make an appearance on National Geographic as one of aviation’s great mysteries,” he said.

“We mustn’t allow this to happen. We must know what caused that airplane to disappear.”

The next phase of the operation to locate the plane began following an extensive mapping process of the ocean floor.

It is seven months since the aircraft went missing with 239 people on board.