Peter Bromhead: Biggest puzzle is parting fact and fiction

Illustration / Peter Bromhead

A sea drama was blurred by invented details. Now it is happening to a mystery of the air, writes Peter Bromhead.

The problem with unsolved mysteries is that, sooner or later, facts become embellished with fiction. The classic historical example is the enigmatic disappearance of the crew of the merchant brigantine Mary Celeste.

The sailing ship, en route to Italy, was found abandoned on December 5, 1872 in the Atlantic Ocean.

It was boarded by Oliver Deveau, chief mate of another brigantine, the Dei Gratia, who reported that there was no crew on board and the sextant and marine chronometer were missing, with the lifeboat, a small yawl.

Clearly, the ship had been abandoned for no apparent reason.

While there was more than a metre of water below decks, the ship was not sinking and was seaworthy. The most plausible explanation is that it was carrying a cargo of highly volatile alcohol. When the cargo of 1700 wooden barrels was unloaded, nine casks were empty and it is presumed the contents leaked during the voyage, releasing a highly dangerous level of vapour that could have easily exploded.

When this was discovered, the captain had probably made the instant decision to abandon the ship, moving the crew hurriedly into the lifeboat, but keeping it tied to the stern of the ship by a long towline.

However, it is believed lifeboat and ship separated, probably because of an insecure rope, which was later found trailing astern of the abandoned ship. The cast-adrift crew either drowned in a storm or died of thirst or hunger, while the Mary Celeste continued under sail in the general direction of the Strait of Gibraltar until it was discovered.

Thanks to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a fictional account soon replaced reality. Doyle renamed the vessel the Marie Celeste and in his version, no lifeboats were missing and still-warm breakfast tea was on the table with half-eaten food - when the ship was discovered.

His spooky version rapidly came to dominate popular accounts of the incident and was even published as fact by some reputable newspapers.

The intriguing question now is how long will it take to establish a fictional account of what happened to Malaysia Airlines flight MH370?

Trawling the internet, it's clear from even official sources that confusion and contradictory accounts keep surfacing.

The latest report says it's unlikely the aircraft climbed erratically to 45,000ft, as earlier suggested, because an international review has found Malaysian radar equipment had not been calibrated with enough precision to draw any conclusions about the true altitude.

"The primary radar data pertaining to altitude is regarded as unreliable," said Angus Houston, the retired head of the Australian military who is co-ordinating the search.

Houston also said it was clearly possible that at some point during the tracked part of the flight, the plane flew at 23,000ft. But he doubted whether anyone could prove the airliner had soared and swooped the way initial accounts suggested.

Another recent press statement said the senior pilot was now considered the prime police suspect - but this allegation has been publicly denied this week by Malaysia's Defence and Acting Transport Minister, Hishammuddin Hussein.

The only certainty is that data from the so-called electronic handshakes suggest the aircraft flew in a controlled flight in a corridor known as "the seventh arc", which surely will end up being the title of another book on the subject.

There still simmer reports of witnesses seeing a plane on fire and, of course, cyberspace is chock-full of wacky blogs about secret airfields, missile attacks and alien encounters.

I wonder what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would have made of the intriguing, rich muddle of scenarios offered by this enigmatic occurrence, which surely would have baffled even his fictional creation, Sherlock Holmes?