Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 found new cause for crash that the plane was put on autopilot which possibly caused it to spiral and crash into the sea, investigators' reports say. According to Australian officials, since it went missing March 8, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 found new cause for crash came out that it was on autopilot before hours before it possibly spiraled into a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean.
The Associated Press reports the latest announcement from officials Thursday which support the shift in the search for the missing plane. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 found new cause for crash after officials analyzed data between the plane and a satellite. Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner Martin Dolan said that investigators now believe Flight 370 being placed on autopilot during the entirety of its flight across the southern Indian Ocean before it ran out of fuel.
Dolan told reporters in Canberra of the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 found new cause for crash, 'Certainly for its path across the Indian Ocean, we are confident that the aircraft was operating on autopilot until it ran out of fuel.'
Dolan was asked by reporters whether whether the autopilot could have been set manually, or if it could have been put automatically under a default setting. To this Dolan responded, 'The basic assumption would be that if the autopilot is operational it's because it's been switched on.'
However, according to ABC News, authorities are still unsure about the exact time the Boeing 777 began running on autopilot. In addition, reasons as to why the autopilot was set during a flight path so far off course from its Beijing destination is still being investigated.
Last week, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 found new search area for the plane after it went missing on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 found new search area reportedly covers more than 23,000 square miles, which is also 70 times larger than the previous search area.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 found new cause for crash of spiralling out of control for nearly four minutes before crashing reportedly contributed to the expanded search area, according to today's report.
Transport Minister Warren Truss said, 'We couldn't accurately, nor have we attempted to, fix the moment when it was put on autopilot. It will be a matter for the Malaysian-based investigation to look at precisely when it may have been put on autopilot.'
The report of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 found new cause for crash has been based on the logs of communication between the Boeing 777 and the aviation service satellite network Inmarsat. The logs revealed that Flight 370 flew for seven hours and 38 minutes before it ran out of fuel. The report explained however that when a jet's tank runs empty, engines won't likely stop at once. It was the uneven power which investigators believe to have caused the uncontrollable crash.
Meanwhile, the Malaysian government is reportedly handling the task of investigating the cause of the plane's disappearance, Dolan reiterates. Dolan said, 'Questions as to why, are not what we needed to address to refine the search area.'
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 found new cause for crash was included in the 58-page report released today. According to the Huffington Post, the report's only intention is to explain the variety of ways the plane might have flown to forecast what part of the ocean it ended up.
According to the transport safety bureau, they assumed finding Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 found new search area and supposed the crew to be unresponsive, which may be due to the effects of hypoxia, which is lack of oxygen, hence the autopilot scenario. The loss of radio communications reportedly indicated the long period the plane was not manoeuvred. However, reports emphasized that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 found new cause for crash was only a working theory and did not mean that Malaysia's accident investigators would come up with a similar conclusion.
Loss of cabin air pressure could reportedly result in oxygen deprivation, or hypoxia, which in turn could make pilots unable to perform even basic tasks.
According to reports, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 found new cause for crash and about 1,000 scenarios have been considered to come up with the refined search zone. Before the hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 plane continues however, two ships will need to complete a bathymetric survey of the ocean floor which already began last month so that a more detailed map of the underwater terrain can be created.
Dolan said that using probabilities which Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 found new cause for crash was created from, there will be a 1 to 5 percent chance that the ships might discover the wreckage of MH 370 during the mapping process.
According to Dolan, the new search area is reported at several hundred kilometers (miles) southwest of the most recent suspected crash site, about 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) off Australia's west coast.
The hunt, now focused underwater, will begin again in August. The private contractors in the search team will be using powerful sonar equipment to comb the seabed for wreckage in the new search zone. The job is expected to be completed in 12 months.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 found new cause for crash came after the search was shifted several times in the past months after the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished. Transport Minister Truss said that though search results are optimistic for the new search zone, he said that finding the plane still remains difficult. He said, 'The search will still be painstaking. Of course, we could be fortunate and find it in the first hour or the first day - but it could take another 12 months.' Whatever the odds are, loved ones of the passengers still remains hopeful that the plane could still be found, no matter how long it takes.
ABC US News
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