MH370 theories as doomed jet ‘noticed’ on Google Maps in Cambodian jungle

Amateur investigators are convinced they have cracked the decade-long mystery into the disappearance of flight MH370.

Sleuths reckon they know the location of Malaysian Airlines plane, which vanished just 40 minutes after taking off from Kuala Lumpur in March 2014.

The plane, bound for Beijing with 239 people aboard, was never seen again, inspiring an army of internet detectives to try to solve the puzzle, long after the official search mission ended.

READ MORE: MH370 wild conspiracy theories – from black hole to Russians starting World War Three

Alien abduction, North Korean involvement and an insurance scam are just some of the bizarre theories put forward since the plane’s ill-fated journey captivated the world’s imagination.

Fresh hope for new search

While a four-year search operation, costing millions, drew a blank, Malaysia’s prime minister Anwar Ibrahim pledged in March to reopen the investigation if there is enough evidence.

A mathematician from Cardiff University recently gave fresh hope to relatives by publishing his belief that audio signals captured at a hydroacoustic station off the coast of Australia could be key to locating the doomed jet.

Dr Usama Kadri said: “Our analysis shows clear pressure signals from previous aircraft crashes were detected on hydrophones, even at distances exceeding 3,000km.

“In the case of MH370, official investigations concluded the aircraft must have crashed near the 7th arc – the point at which the last communication between the plane and INMERSAT occurred.”

He’s not alone in his belief the plane – which disappeared and stopped communicating with air traffic controllers on the border of Malaysian and Vietnamese airspace – can be found.

Off the coast of Australia

Most theories of what happened to the aircraft include that it went down somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean after being deliberately crashed by captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53.

Richard Godfrey, a retired British aerospace engineer and creator of the site The Search for MH370, is convinced it would only take one more search in the right location to find MH370.

He has combed different data sets that were previously kept in separate domains and believes the plane is located 1,500 kilometres west of Perth, Australia.

He told the BBC: “The MH370 crash location, defined by the WSPR technology, is within a circle with a radius of 30 kilometres and centred at 29.128°S 99.934°E.

“The captain had a flight simulator at home, where he simulated a flight to fuel exhaustion in the Indian Ocean.

“This area is 1,560 kilometres west of Perth, Australia. It will only take one more search of this area and we will find MH370.”

And Vincent Lyne, a former researcher from the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) at the University of Tasmania, is certain the location of the plane is not a mystery and also believes it is west of Perth.

Mr Lyne, who has published numerous papers on the topic has also been conducting his own independent investigation, told the BBC: “The precise location of MH370 is in a very deep 6000-metre hole about 1,500 kilometres west of Perth and along the longitude of Penang. That location reconciles all evidence.”

Russian hijacking

However, other theories have been put forward over the years, including investigative journalist Jeff Wise’s suggestion that the plane was diverted north to Kazakhstan, the site of Russia ’s main space port, on the orders Vladimir Putin.

Meanwhile, Swedish pilot Petter Hornfeldt identified an “anomalous” radio message made by the captain which he believes could offer vital insight into what happened in the plane’s final moments.

He said the slight meandering of the airliner’s course from then on was a sure sign that the autopilot had been switched off, and that whoever had sealed the fate of the plane’s 12 crew members and 227 passengers was flying it manually.

Buried on the seabed

British Boeing 777 pilot Simon Hardy, who was invited to join the search in 2015 and tested out a range of theories using the world’s best flight simulators, reckons the plane and its passengers are entombed on the seafloor after its “suicidal” pilot executed a perfect ditching into the ocean.

Speaking on the anniversary of the disappearance, he said the flight’s resting place is in the Geelvinck Fracture Zone, a trench plagued by earthquakes that will have by now buried it.

Jungles of Cambodia

British tech expert Ian Wilson was so convinced the plane’s remains are scattered deep in a jungle in Cambodia that he and brother Jackie flew to the country to try to track it down themselves.

He claimed to have spotted the Malaysia Airlines plane on Google Maps, but they were forced to abandon a near-fatal search for debris after battling harsh conditions four miles north of the Phnom Aoral peak.

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