AN aviation expert has rubbished claims the pilot of doomed flight MH370 “gently” landed the plane in the Indian ocean.
Christine Negroni said analysis of pics of washed up wreckage shows the Boeing 777’s wing flaps were retracted when it smashed into the sea in March 2014, meaning the plane was out of control when it hit the water.
The findings cast further doubt on bombshell claims made by former Canadian air crash investigator Larry Vance.
Vance told Australia’s 60 Minutes earlier this month that pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah flew off course on a suicide mission and planned to kill himself and the 238 others on the journey from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur.
Mr Vance said: “He [the pilot] was killing himself; unfortunately, he was killing everybody else on board, and he did it deliberately”.
And in his new book MH370: Mystery Solved, Mr Vance says evidence suggests Shah tried to ditch the plane as gently as possible to avoid creating wreckage that would make it easier to find.
In a post on her website, she fumed: “Ladies and gents, thanks to 60 Minutes, pilots Vance and Hardy are in the cockpit.
“They’ve fuelled up with alternative facts and are taking us on a flight to the absurd.
“Will we ever return from this remote region of reality? Stay tuned.”
She accused the show of airing “far-fetched”, “hokum” details — in particular is claims about the wing flap suggesting a controlled landing.
Vance had said the wings flaps that washed ashore in 2016 were extended as they would be in a controlled landing.
Aviation experts say the wing flaps were retracted and not extended, throwing doubt on claims made on Australian TV earlier this monthCredit: EPA
Evidence released by Australian authorities investigating the MH370 disappearanceCredit: Australian Transport Safety Bureau
But Ms Negroni wrote Vance should have “revisited that statement when a forensic examination showed the flaperon was very likely stowed, not deployed when the plane crashed.”
She pointed to an October 2017 report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which said: “It was established from the debris that the aircraft was not configured for a ditching at the end-of-flight.
“Analysis indicated that the flaps were most likely in a retracted position at the time they separated from the aircraft making a controlled ditching scenario very unlikely”.
Ms Negroni’s view has been backed by MH370 search director Peter Foley.
He said: “If it was being controlled at the end, it wasn’t very successfully being controlled. The flaps weren’t deployed”.
But a second flap that washed up in Tanzania in 2016 shows it was “probably not deployed”, according to Australian analysts.
Mr Foley’s agency did confirm that “it’s absolutely evident” someone had initially flown the plane off course, ruling out some mechanical or electrical malfunction.
Various governments and private agencies have scoured the ocean for the main wreckage of the doomed flight but have failed to find it.
A total of 239 people were on board, including 153 Chinese nationals, 50 Malaysians, seven Indonesians and Australian, French, Canadian, New Zealander, India, Iranian, Dutch, Russian, Taiwanese, Ukrainian and American nationals.
