MH370 crash blamed on batteries
A new theory on theĀ mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has pointed toĀ 221kg of lithium ion batteries on board.
US pilot and aviation engineer Bruce RobertsonĀ speculated on hisĀ websiteĀ thatĀ the cargo of batteries caught fire during the flight,Ā sending a cloud of deadly carbon monoxide into the cabin.
ā¢Ā MH370 crash theory: āplane did perfect nosediveā
ā¢Ā Malaysia Airlines ātechnically bankruptā
ā¢Ā MH370 search āa waste of moneyā
He described what might have happened next.
āPilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah falls victim to the fumes, butĀ co-pilot Fariq Abdul HamidĀ turns the plane back to the west and begins a descent with the intent of landing,ā Mr Robertson wrote in the report.
āFariq succumbs to the carbon monoxide and the planeās automation takes over the next several hours.
āAs the plane is blind to the world (and the world is blind to the plane), the plane flies in a very large radius left turn, the exponential spiral path first proposed in March 2014.
āThe plane crashes into the Southern Indian Ocean west of the Zenith Plateau, west of Exmouth Australia. This is at roughly 21 degrees south, 103 degrees east.ā
Mr Robertson believed the Boeing 777 came down much further north of the site where searchers were working.
āToo much time and money has been wasted on a fruitless search in an area much further southwest, due west of Perth,ā he said in the report.
In theĀ latest ofĀ a string of theories, earlier in June, a team of mathematiciansĀ saidĀ the Boeing 777 vanished without a trace because it plunged into the Indian Ocean at a 90-degree angle.
The aircraft, carrying 239 people, mysteriously disappeared from radar and stopped transmitting its position on March 8, 2014, with searchers suspecting it flew on for six more hours before meeting its fate over theĀ southern Indian Ocean.
The search, which has involved ships dragging submerged sonar bouys along narrow paths of a 60,000 square kilometre search area, has been doubled to 120,000Ā square kilometres. So far 48,000 square kilometres has been covered,Ā the ATSBĀ reported.
