A retired Qantas pilot has opened up about what may have happened during the mysterious MH370 flight that disappeared almost a decade ago.
Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared over the South China Sea while flying from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China, on March 8, 2014.
The puzzling case made headlines around the world as it appeared the plane, which was carrying 239 people, including six Australians, vanished without a trace.
Just a week after the plane was downed, then Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak claimed there was a “high degree of certainty” that communications with the MH370 cockpit had been deliberately lost.
A popular theory is that the crash was a murder-suicide by 53-year-old Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, but this has never been confirmed by authorities.
Retired Qantas pilot and RAAF training captain Mike Glynn (pictured) said someone in the cockpit of MH370 could have depressurized the plane’s cabin
Retired Qantas pilot and RAAF training captain Mike Glynn appeared in Sky News Australia’s new documentary – MH370: ten years laterpremieres Tuesday at 7:30pm AEDT.
He said there were several ways someone in the cockpit could take out passengers.
There’s a chance they were on the brink of death without knowing anything was wrong.
Mr Glynn told Sky that someone in the cockpit could have easily locked the door and sent the plane into a confused state by depressurizing the cabin.
“(They would) make sure the door is locked so no one can get in.” Nothing anyone can do,” he said.
“When you open these outflow valves, the pressure in the aircraft is reduced very quickly,” he said.
“If the plane doesn’t descend, you’re going to feel very hypoxic within three to four minutes.”
Hypoxia occurs when the body does not receive enough oxygen, which can lead to confusion and a rapid heart rate before the patient loses consciousness.
Mr Glynn added that it would have been easy for someone in the cockpit to keep other people out as lockable doors were introduced after the September 11 plane hijackings.
“The door closes automatically and with this switch you can lock it,” he said.
‘And that’s possible, there is a manual deadbolt that prohibits any form of access to the cockpit. You can launch a full-scale assault on the door, it won’t change anything.”
Mr Glynn’s theoretical passengers would not have known they were in trouble on board the missing flight until they entered a ‘hypoxic’ state
The wreckage of MH370 has still not been found almost a decade later, despite its disappearance sparking the largest ever multinational search operation.
However, Australian fisherman Kit Olver, 77, claimed last year that his trawler caught the wing of a commercial plane in late 2014.
He claims he was fishing about 55 km off the southeast coast of South Australia, in the Southern Ocean. when his net got caught on something big.
“It was a bloody big wing of a big jet,” Mr. Olver said.
‘I’ve been questioning myself. I’ve been looking for a way out of this.
“I wish I’d never seen the thing… but there it is. It was the wing of a fighter jet.”
Because he had a pilot’s license, Mr. Olver was convinced the wing was larger than that of a typical private plane.
His discovery was supported by Peter Waring – whose expertise in exploring the seabed led to his involvement in the search for MH370.
Mr Waring said it was “plausible” that debris from the wreckage had been found in South Australia, as more than 20 pieces of possible debris have been discovered in Africa.
However, the latest theories and discoveries would provide little comfort to the families of the victims, who may never get answers about what happened to their loved ones.
British aerospace engineer Richard Godfrey last month accused the Malaysian government of abandoning its search for MH370.
He claims the government did not want to invest more money in the mission, despite several calls from the victims’ families last year to restart search efforts.
“In my opinion, the Malaysian government does not want the cause of the MH370 crash to be known,” he told the newspaper. Sydney Morning Herald.
“It is not helpful to speculate what the Malaysian government’s motives might be regarding MH370.”