Flight path from pilot’s simulator considered in MH370 search

Data of a flight simulator session recovered from Capt Zaharie Ahmad Shah home was considered during the search for MH370, disclosed the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) in its 440-page final report.

ATSB said six weeks before the incident, Capt Zaharie used his simulator to fly a route, initially similar to part of the route flown by MH370 up the Strait of Malacca, with a left-hand turn and track into the southern Indian Ocean.

“There were enough similarities to the flight path of MH370 for the ATSB to carefully consider the possible implications for the underwater search area.”

However the simulated flight had flown approximately 4,200 nautical miles.

The ATSB added the reasons for the loss of MH370 cannot be established with certainty until the aircraft is found.

“It is almost inconceivable and certainly societally unacceptable in the modern aviation era with 10 million passengers boarding commercial aircraft every day, for a large commercial aircraft to be missing and for the world not to know with certainty what became of the aircraft and those on board,” the report said.

But the report added their understanding of where MH370 might be located was better now than it had ever been.

“The underwater search has eliminated most of the high-probability areas yielded by reconstructing the aircraft’s flight path and the debris drift studies conducted in the past 12 months have identified the most likely area with increasing precision,” the report said.

ATSB said debris from MH370 found on the shores of Indian Ocean islands and the east African coastline in 2015 and 2016 yielded significant new insights into how and where the aircraft ended its flight.

“It was established from the debris that the aircraft was not configured for a ditching at the end-of-flight,” the report said.

ATSB said the initial surface search and the subsequent underwater search had been the largest in aviation history.

ATSB also expressed their sympathies to the families of the passengers and crew on board MH370.

“We share your profound and prolonged grief, and deeply regret that we have not been able to locate the aircraft, nor those 239 souls on board that remain missing.”

MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014 during a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

In August, Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said any decision to resume the search, based on any new data, had to be jointly made by Malaysia, Australia and China