The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 may have been due to “unlawful interference” investigators have concluded.
Investigators also found search operations could have started sooner had air traffic control rules not been breached and the missing aircraft could subsequently have been located if batteries in an underwater location device been replaced after expiring two years before the disappearance.
Flight MH370 disappeared en route between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing on March 8 2014. The aircraft and 239 passengers and crew on board remain unaccounted for.
The Malaysia investigation team issued a report this week concluding the cause of the disappearance may remain unknown.
It noted the aircraft changed direction back towards Malaysia mid-flight without explanation, but was flown manually, not on autopilot.
The loss of communication with the aircraft before its change of course was probably due to systems being manually switched off “with intent or otherwise”, said investigators.
They dismissed suggestions that the aircraft plunged not the sea after running out of fuel or due to a technical malfunction.
The report found the flight’s pilot and first officer had no history of mental illness and background checks found no passenger considered ‘a risk’.
The head of the safety investigation team, Kok Soo Chon conceded he could not state with certainty that there was “unlawful interference” but he said it remains the most likely explanation.
However, the investigation found failings by air traffic control resulted in a 20-minute gap in tracking the flight.
Air traffic control in Kuala Lumpur had handed over monitoring of the flight to Ho Chi Minh City three minutes ahead of schedule without notifying the latter. Instead it asked the pilot of MH370 to pass on the information, which the pilot failed to do.
The Vietnamese controllers then failed to check on the aircraft for 17 minutes after the scheduled handover time, by which time the aircraft had disappeared.
Kok said: “Air flight controllers did not initiate various emergency phases, delaying the activation of search and rescue operations.”
He also found that the batteries in the aircraft’s underwater locator device had expired in 2012.
The investigation concluded: “There is no evidence to support the theory that MH370 was taken over by remote control.”
It also dismissed suspicions that the large number of lithium batteries in the aircraft cargo might have been a factor. Kok said: “We have not found any irregularities in the packing process.”