MH370 mystery: Maths professor says Malaysia Airlines plane nosedived into ocean and stayed intact

Nosedive … researchers used computer simulations to conclude that a 90-degree nosedive explains the lack of debris where MH370 was said to have crashed. Picture: Texas A&M University at Qatar/Notices of the American Mathematical Society Source: Supplied

THE mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has sparked numerous conspiracy theories.

Now a team of mathematicians claims the Boeing 777 vanished without a trace because it plunged into the Indian Ocean at a 90-degree angle.

The perfect nosedive kept the aircraft intact and explains why no debris or oil has been found since the plane disappeared in March last year with 239 people on board, the researchers say.

Texas A&M University at Qatar mathematician Goong Chen, who led the forensic computer simulations, says the supporting evidence is strong.

“The true final moments of MH370 are likely to remain a mystery until some day when its black box is finally recovered and decoded,” Chen said.

“But forensics strongly supports that MH370 plunged into the ocean in a nosedive.

The researchers used applied mathematics to test five different landing scenarios.

These included gliding water entry, a skilful manoeuvre performed by Captain Chesley Sullenberger when he landed a US Airways flight on the Hudson River in New York in 2009.

(The incredible landing has been dubbed the “Miracle on the Hudson”.)

However this scenario was discounted with MH370 because “ditching a large airplane on the open Indian Ocean generally would involve waves of height several metres or more, easily causing breakup and the leak of debris.”

According to researchers’ fluid dynamics simulations, a vertical water entry would have caused the least resistance.

Chen said the wings would have snapped off instantly on impact but the rest of MH370 would have remained intact. All the heavy debris would have then sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

Chen, who has worked in Texas A&M University’s maths department since 1987, led the team of researchers from Texas A&M, Penn State, Virginia Tech, MIT and the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute.

The research was published in the April 2015 issue of Notices of the American Mathematical Society.

Difficult search … the search for missing Malaysian Airline MH370 covered more than 48,000 square kilometres of the sea floor. Picture: AFP/Australian Government/Hydrospheric Solutions Inc/Ryan Galloway and Joshua Phillips Source: AFP

MH370 disappeared on 8 March 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board.

The search for the ill-fated aircraft has covered more than 48,000 square kilometres of the sea floor, Subsea World News reported.

At the request of the Malaysian Government, Australia has accepted responsibility for the search, with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau leading the underwater mission.

source: news.com.au