Wrong search area for MH370?

An alternative theory brought up by searchers of the Dutch engineering company Fugro seemed to suggest that this could’ve been the case, Reuters reported today.

The search area that was decided in 2014 – over 120,000 square kilometers of the southern Indian Ocean off Western Australia – was based on the fuel capacity of the Boeing 777 aircraft.

But now, it is said that if a pilot had been in control and glided the plane with care, the aircraft could’ve gone further beyond the search area, despite having an empty fuel tank.

"If it was manned it could glide for a long way," Fugro project director Paul Kennedy told Reuters. "You could glide it for further than our search area is, so I believe the logical conclusion will be, well, maybe that is the other scenario."

Previously, the search for the Malaysia Airlines aircraft, which went missing on March 8, 2014 during a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board, was conducted based on the aircraft’s fuel capacity – how far it could go with the load of fuel it was carrying.

The theory was that, if the aircraft had ran out of fuel, the plane would have then dived into the water.

But Kennedy told Reuters that a skilled pilot could glide the plane approximately 120 miles (193km) from its cruising altitude after running out of fuel. One pilot Reuters spoke to for their report said it would be slightly less than that.

According to the pilot, someone must manually put the aircraft into a glide – nose down and with controlled speed – for the aircraft to continue gliding after fuel has run out.

"If you lose all power, the auto-pilot kicks out. If there is nobody at the controls, the aircraft will plummet down," the report quoted a captain with experience flying Boeing 777s.

Fugro reportedly said they are "95 percent confident" that the missing aircraft is not in the designated search area.