Discovery of new debris suggests MH370 might have been deliberately downed, says report

Madagascar

The discovery of a piece of debris of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 suggests that the pilot might have downed the plane deliberately into the ocean.  landing gear was down when it hit the ocean. The Independent reported that a Madagascan fisherman was found to be in the possession of a landing gear door of the doomed Boeing 777 25 days ago.

Known as a trunnion door, the piece indicates that the landing gear was down when the aircraft hit the ocean. This is the first material evidence that strengthens the theory that one of the pilots on board deliberately wanted to destroy the aircraft and kill the 239 people present on board. 

American Blaine Gibson, who describes himself as a MH370 wreckage hunter, and Richard Godfrey, a British engineer, have come out with a report on the same. “The level of damage with fractures on all sides and the extreme force of the penetration right through the debris item lead to the conclusion that the end of the flight was in a high-speed dive designed to ensure the aircraft broke up into as many pieces as possible. The crash of MH370 was anything but a soft landing on the ocean," the report says as per the Independent.

“We know from the analysis of the right outboard flap found on Kojani Island, Tanzania, that this was not an attempted ditching, where the flaps would normally be extended, because the expert analysis showed that the flaps were not extended,” the report reads.

The barnacle-crusted part washed up on the shore of the Antsiraka peninsula in Madagascar in March 2017 following tropical storm Fernando, which the fisherman, named Tataly, then chanced upon.

He kept it in his yard for five years and had no idea what the piece was. In fact, his wife used it as a washing board. 

While 19 pieces of debris from the plane have been found till date, this is the first instance of a debris helping gain a better perspective of what might have happened with the plane. 

“The realistic possibility that the landing gear was lowered shows both an active pilot and an attempt to ensure the plane sank as fast as possible after impact,” the report says. “The combination of the high-speed impact designed to break up the aircraft and the extended landing gear designed to sink the aircraft as fast as possible both show a clear intent to hide the evidence of the crash.”

(With inputs from agencies)

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