A senior Boeing 777 captain has reportedly proposed a new theory for Malaysian Airlines flight MH370's final resting place that claims that the plane's pilot took the aircraft on an emotional "last farewell" near the pilot's home island of Penang, before landing it deliberately in the ocean.
According to News.com.au, British senior Captain Simon Hardy, who works with a major commercial airline, studied the flight data for six months and found that the point where MH370 lost all contact with air traffic control over the China Sea was the point where four flight information regions intersected. He said that after turning the transponder off, the flight flew in and out of Malaysia and Thailand airspace eight times in order to confuse the controllers.
Hardy said that the jet also performed a sharp U-turn towards Penang, one of three turns made in the air. He added that after looking at his own flying experience across Australia, he concluded that MH370 pilots Zaharie Ahmad Shah and First officer Fariq Abdul Hamid did a U-turn in the air to catch a closer view of Ayers Rock. "Somebody was taking a last emotional look at Penang," Hardy added.
He later found out that Captain Shah came from Penang, while his copilot was from Selangor.
Hardy also said that he believed that the area being scoured by the search team in the Indian Ocean is about 100 nautical miles away from the jet's final resting place.
His theory, published in Flight International magazine and the flightglobal website, has gained support from one of Britain's top flight safety specialists, David Learmount. Also, Australian investigators described Hardy's theory as "credible."
The flight went missing on March 8 last year with 239 people on board.