MH370 breakthrough as 'new tech pinpoints' could hold key to locating missing plane

6 March 2024, 12:10

MH370 breakthrough after new tech brings hope of 'pinpointing' where missing plane may lie on seabed’. Picture: Alamy

By Danielle De Wolfe

The families of passengers who disappeared aboard missing flight MH370 have been given renewed hope after its suggested ‘new tech pinpoints' could hold the key to where the missing plane lies on seabed.

Hailed as a potential breakthrough, the fresh hope came after Richard Godfrey, a former Boeing, Airbus and Nasa employee, claims to have found an entirely new system capable of tracking the presumed downed aircraft.

He claims the location of the fuselage could be located using radio signals, with Mr Godfrey reporting to know the exact location of the missing plane.

It comes nearly 10 years after flight MH370 vanished while travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.

The Boeing 777 aircraft disappeared from radars while carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew.

It comes nearly 10 years after flight MH370 disappeared from radars while travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with a flapperon the only major wreckage discovered as part of the search. Picture: Alamy

Mr Godfrey, a founding member of the MH370 Independent Group, has been trying to persuade the governments involved to restart search efforts for the missing aircraft.

The news coincides with sea bed exploration firm Ocean Infinity offering their services on a ‘no find no fee’ basis.

Malaysia, alongside Australia and China, ended their search for the missing plane in January 2017.

The two-year, $130-million underwater search operation left searchers and families of the missing with few answers.

Now, Godfrey has hope the new pioneering technology will lead to the discovery of the aircraft.

Using something called Weak Signal Propagation Reporter, known as WSPR, Godfrey says the open source computer programme records and pinpoints the location of weak radio signals between amateur radio operators.

He says that these small, otherwise insignificant signal changes may have resulted from air disruption from aeroplanes, Godfrey says. Picture: Alamy

He says that these small, otherwise insignificant signal changes may have resulted from air disruption from aeroplanes, allowing the points to be plotted and thus tracking the route of the aircraft.

The technology, he claims, could allow for the ill-fated flight to be tracked more accurately than the previous scattergun approach, which included tracking floating debris.

He says, despite it being a highly complicated method, the technique could track the aircraft to a 30 square kilometres area in the Southern Indian Ocean.

Mr Godfrey had previously told the Sydney Morning Herald that “in my view, the Malaysian government does not want another search for the main wreckage of MH370.

“In my view, the Malaysian government does not want the cause of the crash of MH370 to be known. It does not help to speculate what the motives of the Malaysian government might be.”