Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: Passengers Likely Suffocated Before Plane Crashed Into Ocean, Will That Comfort The Families?

Australian officials issued a report on Thursday stating that the passengers and crew on the ill-fated Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 probably died from suffocation. That means that they would have been dead before the aircraft finally came down into the Indian Ocean.

Reuters reports that the Australian Transport Safety Board explained how their investigators had come to this conclusion. Although they had no actual new evidence from the Malaysia plane, they compared what they knew about the conditions on this flight with information from previous disasters.

Their report also stated they had revised their estimate about the current possible location of flight MH 370. By re-assessing the effect of the lack of communication over many hours, the belief that the plane must have been on autopilot, and some other unspecified abnormal circumstances, had caused them to arrive at this conclusion. The ATSB report continued,

“Given these observations, the final stages of the unresponsive crew/hypoxia event type appeared to best fit the available evidence for the final period of MH370’s flight when it was heading in a generally southerly direction.”

As a result, the search area has been shifted to a position farther south in the Indian Ocean. This decision has been taken after 100 days of fruitless searching had produced absolutely nothing in terms of debris, or any other evidence from the Malaysia plane. Investigators say that the sparse evidence still points to the alteration of course being a deliberate act.

Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss told reporters in Canberra, “The new priority area is still focused on the seventh arc, where the aircraft last communicated with satellite. We are now shifting our attention to an area further south along the arc.”

He added that the new search area had been calculated following yet another detailed review of satellite data, early radar information and aircraft performance limits of a Boeing 777.

This new phase will likely begin in August, will examine some 60,000 sq km of ocean, will cost around $56 million (US), and will take at least a year. The search is already the most expensive in the history of aviation.

The investigators have issued a tender to find a commercial operator to conduct the sea floor search closes on Monday. Meanwhile, two vessels, one Chinese and one Dutch, are currently mapping the sea floor along the original arc. Their problem is that the ocean depth exceeds 5,000 meters in parts.

While the investigating team is occupied with the mechanics of finding the plane, the human tragedy element is diminishing. That may be both normal and necessary as part of the process of healing. But will knowing that their their loved ones suffocated, and didn’t drown, be any comfort?

It seems that for missing Malaysia flight MH 370, it’s a case of “another day, another theory.”