Last week, a prominent expert on the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 mystery published the latest version of his theory that the missing plane was actually hijacked and landed at a Russia-controlled airfield in Kazakhstan. Jeff Wise, an author and frequent CNN commentator as part of the network’s MH370 coverage, speculated that Russian President Vladimir Putin must have ordered the high tech hijacking.
The Inquisitr has reported on Wise’s theory in December in the article, at this link , and then again earlier this week in the article accessible by clicking here . Wise wrote about his theory, which he calls “The Spoof,” on his blog, but in the current issue of New York Magazine , he took his theory national, sparking an outburst of coverage for his admittedly astonishing idea.
Wise, as his starting point, cites the fact that despite an ongoing search that has so far covered an area the size of New Hampshire in the South Indian Ocean, not even a scrap of evidence has turned up to indicate that the missing Malaysia Airlines plane is actually there, as searchers operate on the the assumption that Flight MH370 flew there, for some unknown reason, and crashed when the Boeing 777 ran out of fuel .
If the plane is not there, Wise concluded, it must be somewhere else. He used the same satellite data that the official searchers employed, but with one difference. He assumed that once the plane flew past Indonesia on its bizarre, seven-hour journey, Flight MH370 turned north — rather than south, as the official searchers believe.
That trajectory, Wise deduced, would have taken the plane into, or near to, Russia. When he looked for possible landing areas there, Wise found the Yubileyniy Aerodrome, inside the massive Russian space center known as Baikonur Cosmodrome.
Now, the Russians themselves are hitting back at Wise’s theory, which has been covered in media outlets around the world , accusing Wise and the outlets that reported on his hypothesis of a vendetta against Russia — and Putin.
@yurybarmin @NYMag Ok can Borat then fly MH370 to its final destination to solve the problem?
— Johan S (@JSdoetzijnzegje) February 24, 2015
“Anti-Russia propaganda over Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was bad enough. Now one CNN aviation analyst is blaming Russia for the missing MH370 plane as well – and the Western press is eating it up,” wrote Nebojsa Malic for the government-sponsored Russian news site Russia Today . Malic accused Wise of suffering from a mental disorder that causes him to experience bias against Putin.
“Almost the entire mainstream press in the West suffers from this when it comes to Russia – prompting several commentators to dub the phenomenon ‘Putin Derangement Syndrome.’ Witness the recent announcement by a ‘Pentagon think-tank’ that Vladimir Putin is supposedly autistic, dutifully reported as fact. Now it seems Jeff Wise’s fantasy is due for the same treatment.”
Wise himself briefly responded to the charge that he is afflicted with this mental illness, on his Twitter account.
#MH370 journo @manvbrain victim of “Putin Derangement Syndrome,” reports Russian media outlet @RT_com http://t.co/H4ZaBc8J2W Sad if true
— Jeff Wise (@ManvBrain) February 25, 2015
Meanwhile, the fruitless search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 continues, even as searchers as well as experts on the case face the possibility that the plane that went missing one year ago as of March 8 will never be found.