DOOMED Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 mysteriously “flew round in circles” shortly before disappearing, it’s claimed.
Data from British satellites could indicate the plane was oddly circling above the Pacific Ocean in South East Asia in the moments before the plane suddenly vanished on radar screens.
The missing Malaysian Airlines flight vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur, to Beijing with 239 people on board on March 8, 2014.
Despite some debris washing up in Madagascar, the greatest aviation mystery in history has yet to be solved.
But aviation expert Jeff Wise, author of the Plane That Wasn't There, said data from British satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat, could suggest MH370 was flying in circles before it vanished.
Usually a jet will circle at a fixed altitude after being instructed to do so by air traffic control before being allowed to land at an airport.
A satellite called 3F1 had made contact with the plane in the hours after it went missing via a series of what is technically known as electronic “handshakes”, reports Express.
What is called Burst Frequency Offset (BFO) data indicates the doomed plane was flying in circles above the sea.
SPACE DATA COULD OFFER A CLUE
Mr Wise explained: "Just as the motion of a speeding train makes the tone of its whistle go up or down, the relative motion of the satellite and the aeroplane shifts the frequency of the radio signals transmitted between them.
"The BFO is a measure of the difference."
MH370 - WHAT HAPPENED?
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur and was heading to Beijing with 239 people on board.
Passengers included Chinese calligraphers, a couple on their way home to their young sons after a long-delayed honeymoon and a construction worker who hadn't been home in a year.
But at 12.14am on March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines lost contact with MH370 close to Phuket island in the Strait of Malacca.
Before that, Malaysian authorities believe the last words heard from the plane, from either the pilot or co-pilot, was "Good night Malaysian three seven zero".
Satellite "pings" from the aircraft suggest it continued flying for around seven hours when the fuel would have run out.
Experts have calculated the most likely crash site around 1,000 miles west of Perth, Australia.
But a huge search of the seabed failed to find any wreckage - and there are a number of alternative theories as to its fate.
CONFLICTING DATA ADDS TO RIDDLE
But Mr Wise, who has explored a range of theories based on electronic evidence, does sound an air of caution on this conclusion after looking at another set of data called the Burst Timing Offset (BTO).
This is a measure of the time taken for a transmission round trip. It can be used to calculate the distance between the satellite and the plane.
In this case it indicated how the plane flew in a straight line and conflicts with the BFO data.
Mr Wise commented: “Long and short, it was very hard to come up with any routes that matches BTO and BFO data and made any sort of sense in terms of how planes are actually flown.
“At the end of the day you always had to shrug and choose which data to ignore.”
MOST READ IN NEWS
Last week, it was reported the doomed flight made contact with another jet just before it mysteriously disappeared, a new documentary claims.
A pilot who was flying 30 minutes ahead of the passenger jet claims he made contact with the jet via the plane’s emergency frequency.
The shocking new claims were made on the first episode of the investigative YouTube series “Lost flight MH370”.
It tells how air traffic controllers in Vietnam asked pilots of commercial flights in close proximity to MH370 to try to make contact with the plane.
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at email@example.com or call 0207 782 4368 . You can WhatsApp us on 07810 791 502. We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours.