An author is claiming that missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 was shot down by U.S. forces--either deliberately or accidentally--and they want to cover it up, according to reports.
The Mirror newspaper said that John Chuckman,who is the former chief economist an unspecified oil company and now is an author, said that there’s too many unanswered questions about what happened to the missing aircraft.
“Could it be that the United States shot down Flight MH370, either accidentally or deliberately, and now wants to keep it secret?” he asked. “The possibility of recovery of the full wreckage, even if its location were found, from four miles under the sea amongst underwater mountains is extremely remote at best, so the United States can remain confident that physical evidence will never emerge.”
He added there “would be nothing unprecedented in such an act: on at least three occasions, regrettably, America’s military has shot down civilian airliners. I have no idea what event (a rogue pilot, a hijacker?) led to Flight MH370 turning off its communications, changing course, and flying low, but I do know that the event could not have gone unnoticed by America’s military-intelligence eyes and ears.”
Other conspiracy theories include that the plane was hijacked and taken to U.S. base Diego Garcia in the Indian ocean, that the plane was hijacked by a terrorist named “Hitch” to Afghanistan, or that UFOs abducted it.
An Australian-led search team is searching for the plane in the southern Indian Ocean, hundreds of miles west of Perth, Australia. Malaysian officials said the plane crashed in the region.
Australian officials said Thursday that after examining detailed photographs of unidentified material that washed ashore in the southwestern part of the country they are satisfied it is not a clue in the search for the missing Malaysian plane.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has advised search coordinators that the material, which washed ashore 10 kilometers (6 miles) east of Augusta in Western Australia, is not from missing Flight 370, according to a statement from the Joint Agency Coordination Centre.
Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the safety bureau, told The Associated Press Wednesday that an initial analysis of the material — which appeared to be sheet metal with rivets — suggested it was not from the plane.
“We do not consider this likely to be of use to our search for MH370,” he said.
Augusta is near Australia’s southwestern tip, about 310 kilometers (190 miles) from Perth, where the search has been headquartered.
The search coordination center also said Thursday a robotic submarine, the U.S. Navy’s Bluefin 21, had scanned more than 90 percent of the 310-square kilometer (120-square mile) seabed search zone off the Australian west coast, creating a three-dimensional sonar map of the ocean floor, but had found nothing of interest.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
