The final report into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 has left the grieving families of the 239 victims on board outraged and disappointed.
After an exhaustive four-year search, the 495-plus-page report could only reveal that the routine flight carrying six Australians was likely under manual control, and had not been trying to evade radar.
‘They will be forever missed by their families, friends and colleagues, but never forgotten,’ the report read, claiming that without the discovery of MH370 itself, the mystery surrounding the flight’s disappearance would never be solved.
However, Danica Weeks, whose husband Paul was on board, told The Australian the report was ‘merely a mix of words that gives no new information’ and had left her ‘totally deflated.’
The families of the 239 victims on board the Malaysia Airlines flight which vanished over the Indian Ocean were left disappointed and without answers after the final report was released
Danica Weeks, (left) whose husband Paul was on board, said the Malaysian government only offered on Thursday to fly her to Malaysia and Melbourne-based Jennifer Chong, (right) whose husband Chong Ling Tan was on the plane said the report was ‘unacceptable’
After an exhaustive four-year search, the 495-plus-page report (pictured) could only reveal that the flight was likely under manual control, and had not been trying to evade radar
‘Where does that leave us? We are in the wheel again going around and around. It just keeps on going and it just sucks. You have all these hopes that one day someone is going to tell you where your husband is, but it doesn’t happen,’ Ms Weeks told the Daily Telegraph.
Ms Weeks said the Malaysian government only offered on Thursday to fly her to Kuala Lumpur for the briefing for families, but it was too little notice for the mother-of-two with a full-time job and pets.
Unable to make the briefing, she said she had been eagerly awaiting the report and was ‘refreshing the page until the report comes in our emails.’
‘It’s what we’ve been asking for, for so long, but I’m not holding my breath,’ she said ahead of the reports release.
Jennifer Chong, who is based in Melbourne and whose husband Chong Ling Tan was also on the plane, said the findings were unacceptable.
‘1605 days of waiting, 495 pages of ‘final’ report — Only one sentence worthy of mention: In conclusion, the Team is unable to determine the real cause for the disappearance of #MH370. Unacceptable,’ she wrote over Twitter on Monday night.
‘I want to know what happened and where is my husband,’ she said.
Danica Weeks has been searching for answers after the death of her husband Paul on MH370
Jeanette Maguire’s sister and brother-in-law, Cathy and Bob Lawton, were also killed on board the flight.
She encouraged investigators to continue looking as ‘it’s the only evidence they have’ and the only way for future changes to be made.
Malaysia’s Transport Minister Anthony Loke vowed earlier this month that ‘every word recorded by the investigation team will be tabled in this report’.
The final report made no suggestion that the pilot, co-pilot or crew had anything to do with the plane’s disappearance and instead pointed towards ‘third party interference’ as a possible cause.
The investigators said that the aircraft’s unexplained switches of direction – heading back across the Malaysian Peninsula, turning south of Penang and another turn toward the southern Indian Ocean- and the turning off of communications and radar equipment could have been done only by human intervention.
Jeanette Maguire’s (right) sister and brother-in-law, Cathy and Bob Lawton (left) were also killed on board the flight. She encouraged investigators to continue looking as ‘it’s the only evidence they have’ and the only way for future changes to be made
‘There is no evidence to suggest that a malfunction had caused the aircraft to divert from its filed flight plan route,’ the report read.
The change in flight paths ‘are difficult to attribute to any specific aircraft system failure. It is more likely that such manoeuvres are due to the systems being manipulated,’ the report continued.
However, Dr Kok Soo Chon, head of the search team, said he did not believe the pilot was responsible.
A reconstruction flight found the first turn back was likely made while the aircraft was under manual control and not autopilot, however it was uncertain whether the other two turns made by the plane were manual or autopilot.
Some believe Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah hijacked the aircraft, killing his passengers and crew by decompressing the Boeing 777 and depriving them of oxygen.
Pieces of debris have been found as far away as La Reunion (pictured), but the main body of the plane has still not been located
The four-year search for MH370 ended in May after the US-based technology firm Ocean Infinity failed to locate the plane while scouring 125,000sq km of the Indian Ocean
The four-year search for MH370 ended in May after the US-based technology firm Ocean Infinity failed to locate the plane while scouring 125,000sq km of the Indian Ocean.
Malaysia had signed a ‘no find, no fee’ deal with Ocean Infinity to resume the hunt after the official search led by Australia, Malaysia and China was called off in early 2017.
There has been speculation Ocean Infinity could resume the search as it remains in waters off the West Australian coast doing work for Woodside Energy.
Ms Weeks, who moved from Perth to Queensland after the tragedy, said the search had to go on as the crash may have been due to a problem with the Boeing 777 model.
‘They need to keep searching – that’s a given. I understand that without new information, you’re throwing the dice and hoping it’s there,’ she said.
‘It’s a matter of elimination. It’s got to be somewhere.
‘They can’t just push it under the carpet and say ‘that’s it’.’
Several theories have emerged about how the plane disappeared, with some suggesting it was hijacked, while others believe someone on board may have deliberately turned off the plane’s transponder before diverting it over the Indian Ocean.
THE POSSIBLE THEORIES
‘I FOUND IT ON GOOGLE EARTH’
An Australian engineer, Peter McMahon claimed he found what appeared to be a plane wreckage on Google Earth.
After years combing an online map of the Indian Ocean, the amateur crash investigator claimed to have found the wreckage ‘riddled with bullet holes’.
WAS MH370 STOLEN?
Prior to the plane’s disappearance, Captain Zaharie Shah had listed the small island of Diego Garcia – 4700km northwest of Australia – on his flight simulator.
Theorists suggested that Capt Shah may have been practicing landing the plane on the island’s airstrip, which is controlled by Britain but is home to a US naval base.
Suggestions have also been made that the plane may have been stolen by terrorists and hidden in North Pakistan, or even by North Korean dictator Kim Jong un.
In a 2014 poll on the MH370 disappearance, five per cent of American respondents said they believed it had been affected by ‘alien activities’.
Pieces of debris have been found as far away as La Reunion (pictured) but the main body of the aircraft has gone undiscovered
MH370 Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah is believed to have downed the aircraft in an act of murder-suicide
DID THE PILOT COMMIT SUICIDE?
Some have claimed that one of the pilots may have deliberately crashed the aircraft in a well-planned suicide.
According to this theory, captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah deliberately chose to plunge the plane into an area of the ocean up to 25,000 feet deep, where it would be almost impossible to find.
There have been suggestions Shah circled an area of the Indian Ocean just moments before the crash.
Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott is among those to support this theory, saying in the lead up to the third anniversary of the plane’s disappearance he found it ‘plausible’.
‘I have always said the most plausible scenario was murder-suicide and if this guy wanted to create the world’s greatest mystery why wouldn’t he have piloted the thing to the very end and gone further south?’ Mr Abbott said.