A member of the search team for the missing MH370 plane has expressed belief flight documents could prove it was crashed on purpose.
It's been exactly 10 years since the Malaysia Airlines plane carrying 239 people seemed to vanish off the face of the Earth, sparking a decade-long mystery into what happened to it.
There are countless theories about what went down on board, where the plane landed and whether the disappearance was intentional or accidental, but Boeing 777 pilot Simon Hardy believes there is hard evidence to answer some of these questions.
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Hardy was invited by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) to join the search for the plane in 2015, after he calculated the area most likely to be the crash site.
In his investigation, Hardy looked at the plane's technical log which stated that the cockpit's oxygen levels were topped up, and that the plane had additional fuel added prior to takeoff.
Hardy expressed belief that the existing oxygen levels in the cockpit would have been sufficient enough for the short flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, raising questions about why they were topped up.
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Speaking to The Sun, he said: "It's an incredible coincidence that just before this aircraft disappears forever, one of the last things that was done as the engineer says nil noted [no oxygen added], then someone else gets on onboard and says it's a bit low.
"Well it's not really low at all… it's a strange coincidence that the last engineering task that was done before it headed off to oblivion was topping up crew oxygen which is only for the cockpit, not for the cabin crew."
Hardy has suggested that the additional oxygen could have allowed pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah to stay conscious while the rest of the passengers and crew fell unconscious and died as the cabin was depressurised, meaning he would not be interrupted while carrying out a potential plan to crash the plane.
Hardy also pointed to the additional 3,000kg of fuel added to the plane to further support his claim that the disappearance was intentional.
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3,000kg of fuel would have given the pilot an additional 30 minutes of flying time, which Hardy has suggested would have given the pilot more chance to hide the plane.
"If you want to do a good ditching, you do it in daylight or at least half daylight," Hardy said.
"In the case of MH370, if the pilot has another half an hour of fuel it will be daylight.
"Another half an hour of flying would be another 244 nautical miles and the most important thing is that it will be dawn."
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Flight MH370 reached its cruising altitude of 35,000 feet after taking off, and Vietnamese air traffic were in touch with the pilot as the plane headed along its standard route.
However, communication later went silent and the plane vanished from radar when it made an unexpected turn to the west. It is believed to have crashed into the Indian Ocean.
Topics: Conspiracy Theories, World News