Finding MH370

Two episodes ago, I revealed that with the help of two volunteers on the island of Zanzibar I had been able to retrieve the first data showing how Lepas anatifera barnacles grow out on the open sea in the western Indian Ocean, where debris from MH370 was collected. In order to understand what this could tell us about the debris’ origin, I needed to measure the barnacles — more than 700 of them! — and perform a rudimentary statistical analysis. Today I present the results of that analysis. I think they go a long way towards resolving the myster of the missing plane. Get full access to Finding MH370 at www.deepdivemh370.com/subscribe

As the facts have emerged in the case of Air India 171, which crashed while taking off from Ahmedabad, India on June 12, it’s become increasingly clear that in all probability it was a case of mass murder suicide on the part of the captain. Mass murder suicide by pilot is a rare phenomenon, but until now they have all followed a certain pattern. Air India does not fit that pattern. In today’s episode, I make the case that the plane’s captain figured out a way to kill himself that is faster, easier, and more difficult to thwart. I fear that other suicidally minded airline pilots might be inspired to copy him, putting the flying public at risk.Helping me to understand the phenomenon of pilot murder-suicide is Dr Alpo Vuorio of the University of Helsinki, who co-authored a 2023 paper in the journal "Safety" entitled "Commercial Aircraft-Assisted Suicide Accident Investigations Re-Visited—Agreeing to Disagree?" You can find the paper here: https://www.mdpi.com/2313-576X/9/1/17 Get full access to Finding MH370 at www.deepdivemh370.com/subscribe

This week mark the 10th anniversary of the discovery of the first piece of physical evidence in the case of the missing Malaysian Airliner, MH370. When the badly damaged right flaperon washed ashore on La Réunion, a French island in the western Indian Ocean, on July 17, 2015, it immediately caused a worldwide sensation. Scientists realized that the barnacles found growing on the flaperon could provide important clues as to where it had drifted from — and that, presumably, would at last reveal the plane’s crash site. At a time when the seabed search had proven frustratingly empty, they hoped that this information could provide the key to finally solving the case. But scientists were missing an important piece of context: a robust understanding of how exactly Lepas anatifera barnacles grow when floating in the open ocean. For years, that understanding proved elusive. However, using data from the Atlantic Oceonographic & Meteorological Laboratory in Miami and the assistance of volunteers living by the ocean’s edge, I’ve finally been able to collect specimens of known age that put the growth of the flaperon barnacles in context and reveal when the object went into the water. It turns out that scientists’ initial expectations were way off the mark. Get full access to Finding MH370 at www.deepdivemh370.com/subscribe

So far we’ve been focused on the physical and electronic evidence left behind by whoever took MH370. But there’s also a lot we can infer about the psychology of those who did the deed based on the actions that they carried out. In today’s episode, we zoom in five segments of the disappearance and discuss how they can help us narrow down the list of possible perpetrators. Get full access to Finding MH370 at www.deepdivemh370.com/subscribe

As we wait for the seabed search for MH370’s wreckage to restart, it’s worth taking the time to reflect about what we’ve learned from the search thus far, and what future scanning will tell us about the plane’s likely fate. Under the principles of Bayesian inference, the more of the seabed is searched without the plane’s wreckage being discovered, the greater the probability becomes that the plane simply isn’t there at all. But there’s an escape hatch to this logic: according to an idea called Cromwell’s Rule, the probability will not change so long as we are 100 percent confidant in the proposition that the plane is somewhere in the ocean. In today’s episode whether such confidence is merited, or whether the widespread refusal to consider an alternative is due to a mental blockage or blind spot. I also discuss my new feature article in Vanity Fair magazine about mounting concerns about cyber attacks against airliners around the world — and now, for the first time, in the United States. Get full access to Finding MH370 at www.deepdivemh370.com/subscribe

Trying to understand what’s going on with the latest seabed search for MH370 is like reading tea leaves. Neither the Malaysian government, which is responsible for solving the mystery, nor Ocean Infinity, the marine survey company looking for the plane, has been very forthcoming about what they’re doing. So it was a nice change of pace when the Minister of Transport, Anthony Loke stood up at a press conference on April 2, 2025, and dropped two important pieces of information in quick succession. The good news was that Malaysia and Ocean Infinity has finally signed a contract for the search, under which Malaysia will pay $70 million if the plane’s wreckage is found. The bad news was that the search, which had been moving along at a brisk pace in previous weeks, would be suspended until the end of the year. To make sense of what is really going on, I turned to the person who has proven to be the best-sourced observer of the seabed search, Kevin Rupp, who shares marine tracking data and other insights on his Facebook page, Ocean Infinity News and Updates. In today’s episode Kevin reveals what was behind the decision to pause the search and what likely lies ahead. Get full access to Finding MH370 at www.deepdivemh370.com/subscribe

On Friday March 28 the ship scanning the seabed for MH370, Armada 78 06, stowed its AUVs and set sail to the north, putting an end to the second phase of the third seabed search. It is currently underway for Singapore, about 2300 nautical miles to the north, and is scheduled to arrive on April 8.In today’s episode I discuss what Ocean Infinity accomplished during this last search phase and what might lie in store—and why those of us expecting hard answers from the seabed search are likely going to have to wait a little while.Last week I took a look at one of the leading lights of the MH370 community, Victor Iannello; today I explore the more complicated back story of Richard Godfrey. I revisit some of the extraordinary claims he has made and unveil the actual nature of his expertise. It turns out to be quite different from what institutions like the ATSB and the BBC have stated to the public. Get full access to Finding MH370 at www.deepdivemh370.com/subscribe

The seabed search for MH370 remains in full swing. It is now 12 days into Phase 2 of the third seabed search, and we’re talking about whose much-discussed theory of the plane’s disappearance is now being put to the test. I also share some interesting and intriguing information about one of the most important and influential characters in the MH370 community. Get full access to Finding MH370 at www.deepdivemh370.com/subscribe

In the last episode we talked about how we couldn’t tell what Ocean Infinity was planning, because they weren’t saying anything publicly and the ship tasked with searching the seabed seemed to heading off to South Africa.Well, fortunately, that didn’t happen. Instead, Armada 78 06 sailed to a stretch of ocean near the 7th arc, arriving there on Tuesday March 11, and it deployed its three search AUVs, which it continues to do today, Saturday March 15.But what comes next?With still no information coming out of Ocean Infinity or the Malaysia government, all we can do is read the tea leaves, and infer what their strategy is from the surface movement of the ship. There’s no getting around it: what we’re talking about is informed gueswork, but at least the picture is a lot clearer than it was a week ago. And basically, the news is quite good. In today’s episode I explain why. Get full access to Finding MH370 at www.deepdivemh370.com/subscribe

It was eleven years ago today that Malaysia Airlines flight 370 disappeared from radar screens over the South China Sea. Since then millions of square miles of ocean have been searched from the air, hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of seabed have been scanned, a few dozen pieces of debris have been recovered from the shores of the western Indian Ocean, but we still don’t have any conclusive answers as to what happened to the plane or the 239 people aboard. There is a search on—but it’s not clear to what extent. The ship tasked with scanning the seabed, Ocean Infinity’s Armada's 78 06, has set sail towards the search area, but it is displaying its destination as Cape Town, with a time of arrival so soon that it implies that it will spend little if any time on station in the search area.Today I’m going to talk about what we know about the confusing status of the search right now and what the possibilities are going forward. Get full access to Finding MH370 at www.deepdivemh370.com/subscribe

Armada 78 06, the Ocean Infinity vessel tasked with the latest seabed search, has arrived safely in port in Henderson, near Perth Australia, a little earlier than originally planned. That means it will get refitted and will be back out at the search area earlier, too.That’s the good news. The bad news is that some dodgy characters have launched a new wave of misinformation about the case. In today’s episode I explain what it is and why it’s so dumb. Get full access to Finding MH370 at www.deepdivemh370.com/subscribe

Today is Saturday March 1, 2025 and yesterday the Ocean Infinity ship tasked with carrying out the third seabed search for the missing Malaysian airliner MH370 left the search area and is sailing to the port of Fremantle Australia, some 1,000 miles to the east, less than a week after it started the scan on Sunday February 23. In today’s episode we’ll discuss the rationale for the part of the search completed to date, and discuss whether Ocean Infinity will likely return to the search area—and if so, when. Get full access to Finding MH370 at www.deepdivemh370.com/subscribe

It’s Sunday February 23, 2025 and the Ocean Infinity Search vessel tasked with carrying out the third seabed search for MH370 has just now arrived in the search area. Not only is it in a good position to deploy its underwater robots, its position gives us a solid answer to one of the biggest mysteries hanging over the search — namely, where are they going to look and why? Get full access to Finding MH370 at www.deepdivemh370.com/subscribe

The third search for the missing Malaysian airliner, MH370, has began. A ship belonging to the martime survey company Ocean Infinity left the island of Mauritius Frday morning local time and is steaming towards a remote stretch of the Indian Ocean where the plane is believed to have crashed after vanishing 11 years ago. The ship is expected to arrive on February 23 and then deploy sophisticated underwater drones to scan the seabed, a process that will take several weeks or more.Let’s talk about the vessel that’s going to carry out the search, the equipment that it’s going to use, and when we can expect to see results. Get full access to Finding MH370 at www.deepdivemh370.com/subscribe

Of all disasters that can befall a plane, probably none is more terrifying than a sudden, near vertical dive at full speed into the ground. In today’s episode, will look at some of the reasons that this kind of accident can occur. The context, of course, is the crash last Friday, January 31, 2025, by a Learjet 55 less than a minute after takeoff from North Philadelphia airport.In the weeks ahead, accident investigators from the National Transport Safety Board will interview witnesses, collect and examine the wreckage, study maintenance records, and, if it is available, review data from the plane’s flight data recorder to understand what caused the crash and issue safety recommendations to prevent similar tragedies from recurring. As they assemble the evidence, investigators will be thinking about similar accidents that have happened in the past, looking for patterns to guide them in their search for the causal factors.In today’s episode we’ll run through a far-from-exhaustive list of some possibly relevant antecedents to Friday’s crash. Get full access to Finding MH370 at www.deepdivemh370.com/subscribe

Last month the Malaysian Government announced that it had reached an agreement with the marine survey company Ocean Infinity to restart the seabed search for the wreckage of MH370. A few days ago, the Australian commentator Geoffey Thomas caused a stir by claiming that the search was already a dead letter — that Ocean Infinity had “given up all hope” that a firm contract for the search would actually be forthcoming from Malaysia. Why did he say that? Is there any chance that he’s correct. I unpack what’s going on in today’s episode. Get full access to Finding MH370 at www.deepdivemh370.com/subscribe

Big news in MH370 world with an announcement by the Malaysian government that it has okayed an agreement with seabed search firm Ocean Infinity to restart the search for the missing airliner.The question we’re going to address today is, where are they going to look for it, and why is this happening now? Get full access to Finding MH370 at www.deepdivemh370.com/subscribe

Civil aviation has entered a dangerous new era now that Russia has expanded its campaign of sabotage in northern Europe to attack civil aviation directly.The question we’re going to address in today’s episode is whether those attacks are limited to the planting of incendiary devices on board aircraft, or whether Russia has also started hacking navigational sytems to destroy aircraft and kill flight crew, in particular with the November 25 crash of a DHL 737 freighter in Vilnius, Lithuania.To be clear, we don’t yet know the answer to this question, but a point I’ve repeated several times in this podcast is that in compromised environment we have to ask the questions before we can find the answers.To help us understand the issue, we’re joined today by Harshad Sathaye, a cybersecurity researcher who in 2019 published a paper describing an attack which, if carried out, could cause a crash like the one that occurred in Vilnius. Get full access to Finding MH370 at www.deepdivemh370.com/subscribe

In early 2009, Iran’s secret proram to build nuclear weapons suffered a series of mysterious failures. Centrifuge machines used to purify uranium suddenly spun out of control and tore themselves apart. More than a thousand machines were destroyed, and Iran’s pursuit of the bomb was seriously delayed. It turned out that the machines had been sabotaged by a computer virus called Stuxnet, a sophisticated malware developed by Israel and the United States.The attack demonstrated that hackers can not only take control of computer systems, but also reach through those systems to create physical effects in the real world. Today there’s a whole subspeciality of the cyber security field called “cyber physical” devoted to stuydying this kind of attack, and I’m fortunate to have with me today one of the leading lights, Dr Krishna Sampigethaya, a professor at Embry Riddle Aeronatical University, who will talk to us about its relevance to aviation and specifically to MH370. I ask him whether, in his view, MH370 could have been the victim of a cyber-physical attack. Get full access to Finding MH370 at www.deepdivemh370.com/subscribe

In today’s episode we discuss a new approach to gathering the Lepas data that could help us finally understand how long MH370’s debris was in the water. By tapping into a worldwide community of oceangoing sailors who convence on the social media site No Foreign Land, it might be possible to retrieve data from barnacles that are just about anywhere in the ocean. I tried out this approach by reaching out to cruisers Leslie Graney and Peter Sheaff after I noticed that there boat “Itchy Feet” was quite close to an interesting Global Drifter buoy near the island of Vava’u in Tonga. With incredible graciousness and pluck Leslie and Peter immediately set out on a quest to intercept the buoy, while I looked on from halfway around the world. While the experiment didn’t succeed in achieving all of its goals, it was a great demonstration of how the idea could work in the future, and gave us important ideas for improvements going forward. Get full access to Finding MH370 at www.deepdivemh370.com/subscribe