By now everyone has heard about the mystery surrounding the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. The aircraft took off at midnight from Kuala Lampur headed for Beijing but never made it to its destination. Sometime shortly after takeoff the plane went dark, meaning that it disappeared from radar detection.
There has been several theories about the missing plane from terrorism, to a possible hijacking and even pointing the blame at the two pilots. Chris Goodfellow, a veteran Canadian pilot, offered his theory on what happened.
Maybe because his idea of the missing plane is so simplistic or maybe because many people believe it could hold some truth, Goodfellow's claims has quickly gone viral. He posted his theory in a Google Plus post on Mar. 18, which was then published on Wired.com.
In his post, Goodfellow praises the captains, Zaharie Ahmed Shah and Fariq Abdul Hamid, and suggests that a cockpit fire forced the two men to try an emergency landing in the Maldives. Goodfellow is adamant that a fire on the plane is the only explanation that makes sense.
He believes that at about the same time the plane diverted from its course is when the pilots either noticed a fire or heavy smoke. Goodfellow suggests that the pilots probably tried to make an emergency landing at the nearest airport - a 13,000 ft. strip called Palau Langkawi on the west coast of Malaysia.
He went on to say that he thinks the plane was probably overcome with smoke and the pilots were not able to safely make the landing, so they continued to fly west as a "ghost plane." Goodfellow believes the aircraft might have then crashed near the Maldives.
"We old pilots were always drilled to know the closest airport of safe harbor while in cruise," he wrote. "Instinctively when I saw that left turn with a direct heading I knew he was heading for an airport."
"The pilot did all the right things. He was confronted by some major event onboard that made him make an immediate turn to the closest, safest airport," he continued. "When I heard this I immediately brought up Google Earth and searched for airports in proximity to the track toward the southwest."
In his theory, Goodfellow thinks the fire could have been caused by the lithium batteries that were on board or that the plane's tires overheated during takeoff and slowly burned before the fire made its way to the cockpit.
"What I think happened is the flight crew was overcome by smoke and the plane continued on the heading, probably on Gorge (autopilot), until it ran out of fuel or the fire destroyed the control surfaces and it crashed," Goodfellow wrote. "You will find it along that route - looking elsewhere is pointless."
There has been a lot of talk about why the plane's communication devices were shut down but Goodfellow said in the event of a fire, it makes "perfect sense" to him. On the same day Goodfellow made his claims, residents of the Maldives reported seeing a "low-flying jumbo jet" on the morning of the plane's disappearance.
According to Malaysian newspaper Haveeru Daily, residents said they saw a white plane with red stripes, which is what the Malaysia Airlines flight looked like. They said the plane made an extremey loud noise as it flew overhead.
However, an update on the story by the newspaper said the claims of residents seeing the jet was not true.
"Malaysia dismissed reports of a possible sighting of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 by islanders in the Maldives," the paper wrote.
What do you think of Chris Goodfellow's claims?
