MH370 is believed to have been hijacked when it disappeared over six years ago, but it has never been clear how – now, one expert claims the passengers may have been “numbed” with spiked tea to subdue them.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went missing on March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board. The flight path of the plane after it disappeared from civilian air traffic control radar was tracked using primary radar owned by the military and from communications it had with a satellite. The primary radar data implies a hijacking, because the plane took a U-turn and flew back in the opposite direction to where it had been headed.
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It flew in zig zags fast along Flight Information Regions (FIRs) so it would not be disturbed, up the strait of Malacca towards the Andaman Islands.
All this implies that it was being flown manually by someone who has a deep understanding of how to fly a commercial airliner.
However, one of the biggest mysteries was how a hijacker would manage to take control of the entire plane without a distress signal being sent out.
Aviation engineer Ismail Hammad told Express.co.uk that he believes the passengers could have been subdued by spiking their tea.
He said: “I do not doubt that what happened was a collective thing that affected everyone who was on board the plane.
“The hijacker could control the passengers, the crew and security personnel in a joint and rapid action that unites them on different ages, nationalities and health conditions.
“And I think that the common factor that brings the people of southeast Asia together is their love to drink tea, especially Malaysian tea which is popular for all, so most probably [the hijacker] numbed them by drinking tea.
“This act might be done either by mixing the tea with some substance or adding it to the boiler of the hot water of the beverage.
“This act might be an individual act performed by a crew member or shared by others on the ground before takeoff.”
Mr Hammad added that he had personally dismissed other theories of how the aircraft’s crew and passengers were subdued including poisoning through the meals.
He pointed out that food is subject to taste and choice, but insisted everyone drinks tea.
He also addressed the possibility that the pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, depressurised the cabin, while wearing an oxygen mask himself.
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The engineer claimed that in this situation the co-pilot, Fariq Abdul Hamid, would have seen and intervened to stop him.
He added that “depressurising of the plane at a level of 35,000 feet would have caused it to be destroyed and transformed into something like a cigarette box stomped by feet, and fall over the territory or beaches of Malaysia”.
Without the Boeing 777-200ER’s black boxes including the cockpit voice recorder, it can never be known exactly what happened inside the plane during its final moments.
Nor can it be determined who exactly was responsible for the apparent hijack – the pilot, the co-pilot, another member of the crew, a passenger or a stowaway.
However, what the official investigation concluded was that, after the plane reached the Indian Ocean and disappeared from military radar, it then flew south over the sea.
Based on seven communications between MH370 and 3F1, a satellite owned by British satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat, it seems to have terminated its journey in the south Indian Ocean, west of Perth, Australia.
However, despite extensive search missions in the area, no wreckage has been found.
The lack of wreckage and no black boxes mean that it cannot be said conclusively what happened to the plane.
This means there are dozens of theories, none of which have been proven.
Sourse: www.express.co.uk
