Report suggests Flight MH370 out of control when it vanished

A search officer scans the water in the southern Indian Ocean for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in March 2014. Rob Griffith / AP – file

Fugro World Wide, the Dutch company leading the underwater hunt for the plane, has suggested that the plane

may have glided rather than dived in the final moments, which would mean it has probably been searching in the wrong part of the Indian Ocean.

But Wednesday’s report — released by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is leading the search for MH370 — said additional analysis of satellite communications and wing flap debris was consistent with the plane’s having smashed into the water at a “high and increasing rate of descent.”

Related:

Missing MH370: Wing Flap Found Off Africa Is From Vanished Plane

Peter Foley, director of MH370 search operations for the Transport Safety Bureau, said at a news conference Wednesday that the new analysis “means the aircraft wasn’t configured for a landing or a ditching,”

Sky News Australia reported.

“You can draw your own conclusions as to whether that means someone was in control. You can never be 100 percent,” Foley said. “We are very reluctant to express absolute certainty.”

The report was issued at the start of a three-day conference of international experts in Canberra to decide whether and where to continue searching for the missing plane.

Investigators said last month that the underwater search will have to be delayed because of bad weather in the Indian Ocean.

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