02 November 2016•Update: 04 November 2016
By Recep Sakar
MELBOURNE
A Malaysia Airlines plane missing for more than three years most likely ended up in the Indian Ocean after a rapid and uncontrolled descent, a report released Wednesday says.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) report says that analysis of two Boeing 777 wing flaps deemed to be from Flight MH370 shows neither were in a landing position when the plane went down.
"Additional analysis of the burst frequency offsets associated with the final satellite communications to and from the aircraft is consistent with the aircraft being in a high and increasing rate of descent at that time," it said.
"Additionally, the wing flap debris analysis reduced the likelihood of end-of-flight scenarios involving flap deployment."
The report added that preliminary results of drift analysis carried out by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation -- the federal government agency for scientific research in Australia -- had indicated that debris from the flight originated from south of the current search area.
"The northernmost simulated regions were also found to be less likely. Drift analysis work is ongoing and is expected to refine these results."
Flight MH370 -- carrying 239 passengers and crew -- disappeared from radar shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing on March 8, 2014.
The fuselage has yet to be found despite massive search operations in the southern Indian Ocean, where the aircraft is believed to have ended its flight after diverting from its original route.
The search and rescue mission -- which began immediately after -- involved some 160 assets as well as experts from 25 countries.
To-date, at least six pieces of debris found along Africa’s east coast have been confirmed as “almost certainly” coming from MH370.
After 10 months of intensive undersea search for the vanished flight, on Jan. 29 2015 Malaysia declared MH370 was lost in an accident, killing all passengers.
On July 29 last year, a piece of aircraft debris was found washed ashore east of Madagascar. The debris -- believed to be from a Boeing 777 -- was sent to Toulouse, France, for analysis the following day.
Days after, Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak announced that the flaperon was from MH370, and that the flight had ended in the Indian Ocean.
On July 22, a ministerial tripartite meeting decided to suspend the search operations for MH370, after competing the current earmarked 120,000 square kilometers (46332 square miles).
