[Peetwo]

Deadley is back, this time it is not a re-run of a year ago...   

MH370 Maldives theory dismissed  

• by: HEDLEY THOMAS
  
• From: The Australian
  
• June 20, 2015 12:00AM
  

National Chief Correspondent
Brisbane



A view from the air of the capital of the Maldives, Male. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen Source: News Corp Australia

Sightings by villagers in the Maldives in March last year of an aircraft they believed could have been the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 have been reinvestigated by the head of the country’s aviation authority, resulting in the theory being all but ruled out.  

Maldives Civil Aviation Authority chairman Ibrahim Faizal said in early April that he was concerned the villagers’ claims had not been properly reviewed by Defence or other agencies in his country.

The Malaysia Airlines plane, with 12 crew and 227 passengers on board, went missing on March 8 last year.

Mr Faizal said at the time he believed the aircraft the villagers saw crossing the remote island of Kuda Huvadhoo at a relatively low altitude on the morning it would have crashed could have been the Malaysian jet.

Yesterday, he said he was now confident the villagers had seen a much smaller, 50-seat aircraft near the island at the time.

“I wanted to revisit it because I did not have all the information for me to make a call on it, hence why I had another look at this thing again,’’ he said in an email.

“I was not personally happy or satisfied at the time over what had happened (with the official review of the witness accounts).

“To be honest, now I have no reason to believe that it’s the MH flight. I am more firm in my conviction after speaking to the island council now. This whole issue was confused by other matters like the sighting of a fire extingu­isher — we found that this is not from any aircraft, let alone a B 777.

“I am convinced now, given all the information and data we have, that it was not the MH but most likely the Island Aviation Bombardier Dash 8.”

Island villagers told The Weekend Australian in March that the aircraft they saw was very large with red markings, similar to the missing jet.

Court official Abdu Rasheed Ibrahim, 47, one of several witnesses, said: “I watched this very large plane bank slightly and I saw its colours — the red and blue lines — below the windows, then I heard the loud noise. It was unusual, very unusual.”

The Australia-led search for the plane, in the southern Indian Ocean more than 5000km away, is guided by calculations of weather conditions, fuel exhaustion and other variables.

No trace of it has been found.

Hmm...pretty big difference between a Dash 8 & a B777



MTF...P2