On March 8th 2014, flight MH370 disappeared from the radar screens. A year later, the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 has not yet been found. There are still many unanswered questions as to why the ‘plane disappeared without trace.
The French Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA), which did not participate directly in the enquiry, did however, share the benefit of their past experiences concerning the Rio-Paris flight with the Malaysian Underwater Research investigators. We interviewed BEA’s director to find out where the investigation into mysterious flight MH370 stands today.
Rémi Jouty, Director - BEA: “We are not able to concieve, or construct a scenario that matches or corroborates all the available evidence. We cannot think of any technical malfunctions that could explain, and corroborate the few available factual elements, and notably that of the disconnection, within a very short time span, between the ACARS connections, the transponder, and a 180° turn-around of the aircraft. One could think that there may have been deliberate actions on board the aircraft for reasons we do not understand; i.e., human actions.”
Rémi Jouty, Director - BEA: “They are theories, speculations for which it is hard to imagine a scenario that completely fits the available data.”
Rémi Jouty, Director - BEA: “A quite complex task of analyzing satellite signals, coupled with elements of information regarding the possible performance of the aircraft, have allowed us to define a search area for flight MH370 covering 60,000 km2 (> 23,000 sq. miles). So far, up to 40% of this area has been swept. However, within the area currently being searched, there is no 100% guarantee that the aircraft is inside, but may even be outside the area.”
Rémi Jouty, Director - BEA: “There is already a first series of ICAO measures that come into force from January 2018; including an increased lifespan for underwater detection beacons on recorders. Today it is 30 days, in the future this will be 90 days. Then, from 2016, something the ICAO recently proposed, is a development requiring aircraft to emit their position every fifteen minutes during normal flight, and, over all oceans.”
In the history of modern civil aviation, a commercial aircraft has never disappeared without a trace like flight MH370. A mystery that the families of all 227 passengers and the 10 Malaysia Airlines 777 crew members, hope, will one day, be resolved.
Watch the video "Flight MH370: a father's testimony" published on July 1st 2014.
