Experts 'optimistic' in finding missing MH370 flight. / Sky News AU
Aviation experts are confident they can finally explain the mystery behind MH370.
A 60 Minutes investigation airing tonight features a panel of aviation experts working to determine what brought the plane down.
For more than four years the world has grappled with questions over how the Boeing 777 airliner carrying239 passengers and crew mysteriously vanished into thin air en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.
Now experts say they finally have the answers.
The shadow of a Royal New Zealand Air Force P3 Orion is seen on low level cloud while the aircraft searches for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean. Photo / AP
Larry Vance, former Senior Investigator with the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, told 60 Minutes he is confident he knows what happened to the aircraft.
"I think the general public can take comfort in the fact that there is a growing consensus on the plane's final moments," he said.
The panel, which also includes renowned aviation safety expert Captain John Cox and Martin Dolan, who was Chief Commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau when MH370 vanished, will re-examine the evidence and look at whether the ghost flight was actually a deliberate act of murder carried out by Captain Zaharie Amhad Shah.
Numerous aviation experts believe Zaharie was responsible for the incident, and in 2016 Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull unexpectedly said it was "very likely that the captain planned this shocking event".
John Dawson, a lawyer who represented nine families from MH370 and MH17, recently told News Corp Australia the evidence pointed squarely to one of the aircrew being responsible.
"In MH370, you have the pilot flying between Malaysia and Beijing who turns back the aircraft. The evidence is so heavily weighted to involvement by one of the aircrew taking this aircraft down.
Royal Australian Air Force Sergeant onboard an AP-3C Orion over the southern Indian Ocean as part of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority-led search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
"That aircraft has probably depressurised, the people died of asphyxiation, it was premeditated murder. It was highly planned. The bodies have never been found."
But despite experts' observations, the Malaysian government, which has signed a "no cure, no fee" deal with Texas-based company Ocean Infinity to resume the hunt for the plane, remains silent on the question of Zaharie's possible involvement.
Ocean Infinity started the search on January 22 this year, following a failed $200 million search for the plane. At the time, experts said they expected to have answers within a matter of weeks.
The company has 90 search days to look for the plane, which has been spread over several months.
Officials said there was roughly an 85 per cent chance of finding traces of the wreckage in a new 25,000 square kilometre search area.
