British aviation engineer says he has found the site of the famous Malaysian plane crash

The Times reports that a British flight engineer claims to have solved one of aviation's biggest puzzles by using new tracking technology to find Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared 7 years ago.

In a

Times quoted

engineer Richard Godfrey, a founding member of the Independent Commission to Research the Disappearance of the Malaysian Boeing (777), a panel of experts, as saying he was very confident that the new mapping program had located the crash site in the Indian Ocean, a few miles away. 1200 miles west of Perth, Australia.

It is reported that the plane disappeared on March 8, 2014, shortly after leaving the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, on a night flight that took 6 hours to Beijing, with 239 people on board.

Trackers showed the plane mysteriously reversing its course and flying south over the Indian Ocean, where it is believed that it ran out of fuel and caused the crash.

The largest and most expensive search process

The disappearance led to the largest and most expensive search operation in the history of civil aviation.

Surface and undersea searches did not find any trace of the plane, but more than 30 parts and components were found that were confirmed to belong to that plane, including the components of one of the two large wings on the coast of the Indian Ocean.

Using a new program to research historical aircraft's interactions with radio waves, Godfrey says his study found that the wreck should be 2.5 miles below the ocean's surface in the mountainous seafloor region of the southern Indian Ocean.

The Times says this site has been included in previous underwater searches, but the study may inspire further investigation of the site.

It quoted Peter Foley, head of the largest and longest-running research on the plane, conducted by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, as saying that while Godfrey's methodology had been contested, he deserved credit for his years' worth of effort on the plane.

Momentum for new research

Australia's Airline Ratings website reported today that Godfrey's findings "are expected to provide impetus for new research later next year".

The Times said this is believed to be done by US-based undersea drilling company Ocean Infinity, which in 2018 conducted its second unsuccessful search for the plane after contracting on a "no-find, no-fee" basis with its owner, the Malaysian government. .

The newspaper pointed out that the site identified by Godfrey, located 1201.1 miles west of Perth at 33.177 degrees south 95,300 degrees east, within the area where the head of the ocean sciences department at the University of Western Australia, Professor Charitha Bhatiarachi, has long believed that the remains of the plane were located.

It aligns with a number of facts

It is also in line with the UK's Inmarsat satellite data, aircraft performance and engineering data, weather along the route, and 33 pieces of debris found.

The Times also noted that the technology used by Godfrey employs a little-known online database of stored communications, known as Spots, between computerized radio transmitters and receivers for terrestrial hobbyists.

Godfrey told Australia's Seven Television Network that his theory was that the crash was deliberately orchestrated by one of its pilots, a theory questioned by Australian experts.