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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on

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Speaker 1: iHeart Radio and welcome back to Coast to Coast George

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Speaker 1: Nori Loong with Richard Godfrey, who has been investigating MH

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Speaker 1: three seventy since its disappearance back in twenty fourteen. Richard,

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Speaker 1: this latest piece of debris. You said that I showed

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Speaker 1: up a couple of years ago, but nobody really knew

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Speaker 1: about it. Tell us what it was. It was an

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Speaker 1: item which is very similar to other debris items that

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Speaker 1: we've found. It is a composite material, carbon reinforced fiber.

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Speaker 1: It has a honeycomb structure. The pieces obviously fragmented and

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Speaker 1: fractured on every side. It's been ripped off from the plane.

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Speaker 1: It looks to me like a piece which comes from

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Speaker 1: one of the wings. When on the wings, when the

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Speaker 1: undercarriage is extended and lowered, the main pieces of the

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Speaker 1: undercarriage come out from the body of the fuselage. They

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Speaker 1: extend out under the wing, and there are four doors

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Speaker 1: that open to allow the undercarriage to be extended. And

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Speaker 1: I think this piece looks rather like it could be

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Speaker 1: from one of those doors under the wing of this

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Speaker 1: unfortunate MS three seventy aircraft. They ever found parts of

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Speaker 1: the landing gears or anything like that. The wheels, they

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Speaker 1: have found from the nose wheel, a door. There are

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Speaker 1: four doors that open on the nose of the aircraft

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Speaker 1: for the nose wheel, and they matched that up with

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Speaker 1: a with another bowing triple seven, and that got confirmed

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Speaker 1: to be from M three seventy. They have found parts

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Speaker 1: from all over the aircraft, from the interior, the exterior,

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Speaker 1: from the wings, from the fuselage, from cabin seating, cabin dividers,

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Speaker 1: from from the nose to the tail, even bits of

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Speaker 1: engine cowling and engine nameplates. So this was quite a

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Speaker 1: massive impact in order to get all these pieces from

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Speaker 1: all over the aircraft. And as I mentioned earlier, thirty

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Speaker 1: seven pieces have been found meanwhile which have floated, mostly

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Speaker 1: because of the honeycomb structure, because that captures air in

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Speaker 1: the honey comb structure and these pieces will float on

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Speaker 1: the ocean. Is there any evidence, Richard, of an explosion

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Speaker 1: aboard the plane. No, there's no trace on any of

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Speaker 1: these items of explosion or fire. We thought on one

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Speaker 1: piece at one point it looked like it may have

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Speaker 1: been burnt, but the analysis showed it was just a

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Speaker 1: discoloring of the of the resins used in the manufacture

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Speaker 1: of the part, and no traces of explosion or fire.

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Speaker 1: Would the debris have been I guess created by an

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Speaker 1: impact into the ocean seabed. Not the seabed, but the

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Speaker 1: ocean surface is okay. Water is pretty dense, and it's

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Speaker 1: not like crashing into a mountain or to concrete, but

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Speaker 1: it is still pretty dense. And as soon as you impact,

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Speaker 1: you have to bear in mind one hundred and seventy

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Speaker 1: five thousand metric kilos. It's a huge weight an aircraft,

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Speaker 1: even when it's empty of fuel, it's still a huge weight.

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Speaker 1: When it hits the ocean, it will typically and other

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Speaker 1: crashes we've seen hitting the ocean could split into literally

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Speaker 1: fifty thousand pieces or sometimes even more. And this seems

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Speaker 1: to be Richard to be more of a direct impact

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Speaker 1: as opposed of a glide into the ocean. Yeah. When

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Speaker 1: you have an emergency landing, the most famous one I

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Speaker 1: think is Captain Sellenberger on the Huts and River. Yeah, Sully,

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Speaker 1: and you normally extend the flaps so that you can

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Speaker 1: slow the aircraft down. You will keep the undercarriage retracted

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Speaker 1: so that the plane has a smooth belly and doesn't

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Speaker 1: sink in the water quickly, as as you saw in

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Speaker 1: the Hudson River crash of US Airways one five four nine.

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Speaker 1: Sellenberger did a great job landing smoothly. In this case

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Speaker 1: with MH three seventy, we see the opposite. The flaps

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Speaker 1: were not extended. We've got one of the flaps have

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Speaker 1: been found and analyzed, and the conclusion from the authorities

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Speaker 1: was that the flaps were not ended. And it appears

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Speaker 1: from this particular piece of wreckage, we just discovered that

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Speaker 1: it is possible that the undercarriage was lowered and was extended.

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Speaker 1: So it's the complete contrary of what you should do

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Speaker 1: according to the emergency procedure. Therefore, I conclude it was

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Speaker 1: not a soft landing, not an attempted emergency landing like

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Speaker 1: Captain Sellenberger did, but it was the complete opposite. Was

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Speaker 1: a very high speed impact and designed in effect to

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Speaker 1: make sure that there were tens of thousands of pieces

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Speaker 1: of damage and a complete wreckage of the aircraft. The

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Speaker 1: investigators looked at the people aboard the plane and they

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Speaker 1: concluded that there was no hijacking. I'm going to go

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Speaker 1: through some of the ex nations in our book, someone

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Speaker 1: is hiding something, and I'll tell you the one that

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Speaker 1: I think is possible and get your opinion on it.

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Speaker 1: You're ready. Explanation one. These are just explanations. Now, whether hijacking,

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Speaker 1: mechanical malfunction, extraordinary means aliens took the ship shot down

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Speaker 1: by a missile, sabotage, it landed somewhere. And here's the

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Speaker 1: one that I think possibly is the conclusion, suicide or

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Speaker 1: pilot terrorist activity. I think Captain Shah may have been

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Speaker 1: involved in taking that plane into a dive and killed

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Speaker 1: himself and took them with him. What do you think

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Speaker 1: of that? Yeah, I think you've listed all of the

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Speaker 1: possible scenarios. I know there are over one hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty books written on MA three seventy and every book

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Speaker 1: has a different scenario. Number One, A plane does not

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Speaker 1: continue to fly for seven hours thirty seven minutes if

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Speaker 1: it's got a major problem with the fire on board

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Speaker 1: or electrical failure or mechanical issue. So I think the

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Speaker 1: plane was still functioning perfectly well. So then you come

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Speaker 1: to was it was it hijacked? And I know they

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Speaker 1: went through all the passages on board. I know there

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Speaker 1: were two passengers on false passports on board, and but

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Speaker 1: they checked them out and they didn't seem to be hijackers.

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Speaker 1: So I have a problem with the hijack theory. We

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Speaker 1: know that Captain Sahari Shah had a flight simulator at home,

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Speaker 1: and we know on this flight simulation they found one

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Speaker 1: of many flights that he'd done was to the middle

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Speaker 1: of the Southern Indian Ocean until fuel exhaustion. Now, when

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Speaker 1: you got a flight simulator at home, you probably try

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Speaker 1: landing on your favorite airport, or you might try something difficult,

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Speaker 1: landing on a I don't know, in the middle of

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Speaker 1: the Yukon territory and in some mountainous valley or something difficult.

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Speaker 1: But you don't normally try flying to the middle of

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Speaker 1: an ocean till fuel exhaustion. And of course, what about

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Speaker 1: the co pilot. The co pilot was on his last

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Speaker 1: training flight and was Captain Shah was a not just

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Speaker 1: a captain, but a trainer of pilots as well, and

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Speaker 1: he was just doing the final approval check for this

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Speaker 1: young co pilot who would then be, you know, officially

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Speaker 1: a full co pilot for the Triple seven. He seemed

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Speaker 1: to have everything to live for this guy. He just

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Speaker 1: got engaged and he yeah, he got engaged. He just

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Speaker 1: bought a nice car. You know, you're starting to earn

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Speaker 1: some money, and things were looking good. Obviously, Captain Sahari

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Speaker 1: Shaw is a much more senior individual. He has a

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Speaker 1: very good track record as a pilot and he was

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Speaker 1: well respected by his colleagues. But you know, he pilots

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Speaker 1: are also subject like everybody else, to um health problems

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Speaker 1: and they have to get health check every year. The

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Speaker 1: health check report, the final health check report sort of

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Speaker 1: put the ticks in all the right boxes, but it

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Speaker 1: may not have discovered. You know, there was no brain

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Speaker 1: scans done or CT scans or it is just you know,

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Speaker 1: can you are you alert? Are you fit? It's your

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Speaker 1: blood pressure, right, it's your heart rate. Okay, there could

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Speaker 1: have been something which was not obvious in the medical check,

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Speaker 1: some health reason, but that is pure speculation on my part.

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Speaker 1: In terms of the pilot suicide, it's not just a suicide.

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Speaker 1: It will then be also so mass murder of all

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Speaker 1: of the passengers and crew on board. Um, there's there's

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Speaker 1: no evidence of that, so again it's is speculation. The

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Speaker 1: there is this smoking gun, if you like that the

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Speaker 1: home simulator of the captain had this rather weird flight

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Speaker 1: to fuel exhaustion in the middle of the ocean, but

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Speaker 1: that is not direct evidence that that was what he

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Speaker 1: was planning to do. Um and and so in my view,

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Speaker 1: we we know where the plane crashed, We know a

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Speaker 1: lot about what happened with the debris we found and

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Speaker 1: the satellite data we have, and the Boeing data we have,

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Speaker 1: and the Whisper radio technology data we have, but we

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Speaker 1: don't actually know who was flying at the moment of

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Speaker 1: the diversion and the moment of the crash, and we

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Speaker 1: don't know why, what the motivation was. And that's why

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Speaker 1: we need to find the aircraft. We need to recover

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Speaker 1: the data recorder. We need to see if there's any

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Speaker 1: clues in the wreckage that will help the authorities to

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Speaker 1: answer the question exactly what happened and why it happened,

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Speaker 1: and who was the pilot in control. What we do

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Speaker 1: know from the data is that there was an active

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Speaker 1: pilot right up until the end of the flight, so

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Speaker 1: it wasn't a ghost flight, as some people in some

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Speaker 1: books have expressed the idea, and there was never any

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Speaker 1: may day or any kind of broadcast to any other tower.

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Speaker 1: Was there no? And there was plenty of opportunity to

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Speaker 1: do it. The VHF radio has a good range. The

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Speaker 1: satellite phone you can call in from anywhere. The high

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Speaker 1: frequency radio will allow you to communicate over thousands of miles.

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Speaker 1: So there was plenty of systems that would allow you

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Speaker 1: to communicate a May day message, but it never that

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Speaker 1: never came. Hence I mean, obviously, if there was a

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Speaker 1: hijacker on board, they switch off the transponder the aircraft

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Speaker 1: so it can't be tracked. They don't. They switch off

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Speaker 1: the radio and don't take any calls or make any calls.

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Speaker 1: So I tend to go with you down the route

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Speaker 1: of a hijacking. Now, who the pilot was? Was it

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Speaker 1: a hijacker pilot or was it the captain who hijacked

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Speaker 1: his own plane? That I can't determine. I don't have

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Speaker 1: any evidence that tells me one way or the other.

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Speaker 1: Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at

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