In August last year, the air safety consultant had doubted a theory put forward by the lead investigators, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), that the pilot of the ill-fated aircraft had taken a “death dive”.
ATSB had claimed that MH370’s final moments came very quickly, with analysis of Inmarsat satellite tracking data suggesting that an unpiloted MH370 descended rapidly after running out of fuel.
Cox says his belief that MH370 Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah hijacked his own aircraft on that fateful day on March 8 2014 is proven by evidence from the recovered wing flaps.
“Based on that analysis I think it is likely, possibly highly likely, that there was an attempt to ditch the airplane,” Cox was quoted as saying by The Australian.
More than 20 pieces of debris suspected or confirmed to be from the missing MH370 flight have washed ashore on coastlines of southern Africa and other places throughout the Indian Ocean.
The Boeing 777 disappeared with 239 people on board in what remains one of the world’s greatest unsolved aviation mysteries. Flight MH370 had taken off on the night of March 7 from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) enroute to Beijing when it disappeared while it was over the South China Sea.
The aircraft was thought to have been diverted back over peninsula Malaysia, before travelling thousands of miles over the southern Indian Ocean and crashing about 2,000km off the coast of Western Australia.
Australia, China and Malaysia, which jointly coordinated and funded the search operation led by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), announced in January that it had called off the A$200 million (RM660 million) search for MH370 despite the protests of families of those on board.
However, families of the victim were given some reprieve with the announcement that Houston-based Ocean Infinity will be commencing a new search for the aircraft next month under a “no-find, no-fee” arrangement.
The company said it would assume full financial risk for a renewed search, claiming a payment only if it found the aircraft.
It was previously reported that Ocean Infinity intends to send a vessel with advanced sonar scanning technology to a smaller, 25,000sqm space where authorities believe contains vital clues for finding the debris.