organization:australian transport safety bureau

19th Century shipwrecks found during search for #MH370 | Western Australian Museum
▻http://museum.wa.gov.au/about/latest-news/19th-century-shipwrecks-found-during-search-mh370

Two shipwrecks discovered 2,300km off the coast of Western Australia during the initial search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have been identified as 19th Century merchant sailing vessels carrying cargoes of coal.

The sites provide tangible archaeological evidence for use of the historic Roaring 40s trade route for ships between Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand, India, Southeast Asia, China and Japan. 

The Western Australian Museum was asked by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) to analyse sonar and video data taken in international waters by the search vessels Fugro Equator and Havilah Harmony in May and December 2015. The work was undertaken by Dr Ross Anderson, Curator of Maritime Archaeology at the WA Museum.

“Both wrecks were found at depths between 3,700 and 3,900 metres, roughly 36km apart. We used a combination of all of the data supplied by ATSB, historical research and maritime archaeological analyses to determine both wrecks were in fact 19th Century merchant sailing ships – one wooden and one iron – both carrying coal,” Dr Anderson said.
[…]
“Historical research into all 19th Century merchant ships that disappeared in international waters is incomplete so we cannot conclusively determine identity of the individual ships,” Dr Anderson said. “However, we can narrow the possibilities to some prime candidates based on available information from predominantly British shipping sources.

“For the wooden ship the brig W. Gordon and the barque Magdala_ are two possible candidates; for the iron ship the barques_ Kooringa (1894), Lake Ontario (1897) and West Ridge (1883) are possible, with the West Ridge best fitting the evidence.”

#MH370 four years on: until the plane is found, theories run wild | World news | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/23/mh370-four-years-on-the-main-theories-on-what-happened-to-the-plane

In the vacuum of information, theories – some more likely than others – have sprung up. These are the four main contenders:

Mass hypoxia event
The official theory, adopted by both the Malaysian government and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, is that the passengers and crew of MH370 were incapacitated by an unknown “unresponsive crew/ hypoxia event”. Hypoxia is a deficiency of oxygen.
[…]
Fire or accident
In the immediate aftermath of the disappearance, former pilot Christopher Goodfellow speculated that an electrical fire broke out on board. He said this explained the first turn towards Malaysia as Shah was searching for an emergency landing strip. He believes the fire then incapacitated Shah and the cabin crew, leaving the plane to fly south on autopilot.

Patrick Smith, another pilot, has cast doubt on the fire theory, saying it was unlikely MH370 could have continued for six hours on autopilot after a major fire. Officials believe Shah was unconcious, but have not offered any theories as to why or when this occurred.
[…]
The rogue pilot
Byron Bailey, a former RAAF trainer and captain with Emirates, believes the plane was under the control of its captain as part of a deliberate descent into the Indian Ocean.

This would radically alter the current search operation – and potentially explain why the plane has not been found. Current and previous searches assumed the plane dived steeply and suddenly, with nobody at the helm, near the location of the seventh handshake.

But if Shah was conscious, he could have manoeuvred the plane in a long, slow glide, travelling almost 200km further south. This also would have kept the plane more intact, with less debris.
[…]
A northern landing
Yet another theory says the plane is not near Australia at all, but rather to the north of Malaysia.

This theory stems from the way satellite data is calculated. After MH370 turned back towards Malaysia, its last known military radar point showed it travelling slightly north-west towards India.

Bonus…

Photo evidence
Other armchair investigators have claimed to have discovered photo evidence of debris that places MH370 in various other locations, but all have been discredited.

On Monday, Peter McMahon, an Australian investigator, told the Daily Star he had discovered the plane on Google Maps near Mauritius and submitted photo evidence to the ATSB.

But the ATSB pointed out his images were more than 10 years old and predated the plane’s disappearance.

“The images sent to ATSB by Mr McMahon were captured on 6 November 2009, more than four years before the flight disappeared,” a spokesperson for the ATSB said.

Report on #MH370 finds ’initially similar’ route on pilot’s flight simulator
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-malaysia-airlines-mh370/australian-searchers-say-fruitless-end-is-unacceptable-in-final-report-on-m

The captain of the Malaysian Airlines aircraft that vanished somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean with 239 people on board had flown a route on his home flight simulator six weeks earlier that was “initially similar” to the one actually taken, Australian authorities said on Tuesday.

The details were contained in a 440-page final report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) on the unsuccessful search for flight MH370.

The disappearance of the Boeing 777 on March 8, 2014, on a flight to Beijing from the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, has become one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries.

The report concluded that the reasons for the loss of the aircraft could not be established with certainty until the aircraft was found.

“It is almost inconceivable and certainly societally unacceptable in the modern aviation era...for a large commercial aircraft to be missing and for the world not to know with certainty what became of the aircraft and those on board,” the ATSB said.