Did MH370 sink into a ‘black hole' in the Indian Ocean? New theory gains traction

Economic Times

05-08-2025

Synopsis
Missing MH370 News: Eleven years after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 vanished without a trace, a new theory has emerged that claims to pinpoint the wreckage's location in one of the most remote and treacherous parts of the Indian Ocean. Based on high-resolution sonar and terrain data, Dr Vincent Lyne believes the aircraft lies in a deep underwater trench known as the Penang Longitude Deep Hole. His theory challenges the official narrative and calls for urgent re-examination of the evidence. Here's what we know.
Agencies Missing MH370 news In the early hours of 8 March 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur, bound for Beijing. Everything appeared normal for the first 40 minutes. Then came the final radio message at 01:19, calmly delivered by First Officer Fariq Hamid, "Good night Malaysian three seven zero."Seconds later, the Boeing 777 slipped quietly off radar just as it crossed into Vietnamese airspace. It has not been seen or heard from since. Onboard were 239 people. Their fates remain unknown.
After a decade of theories, searches, false leads, and grief, Dr Vincent Lyne, a retired University of Tasmania researcher, believes he's found the closest thing yet to a solution.Using GEBCO bathymetric data, which maps the ocean floor, Dr Lyne discovered a single bright yellow pixel in the middle of nowhere: Latitude 33.02°S, Longitude 100.27°E, roughly 1,500 kilometres west of Perth. That pixel, he says, sits inside a 6,000-metre-deep pit at the eastern end of Broken Ridge, an underwater mountain range scarred with steep slopes, ridges and deep sediment-filled holes.
He calls it the Penang Longitude Deep Hole, and he believes it could be where MH370 came to rest.
"Hidden deep in the vast ocean where Broken Ridge meets the Diamantina Fracture Zone, a single bright pixel has emerged, pinpointing the wreckage with unprecedented accuracy," Lyne said.At that depth nearly 20,000 feet and in such a geologically hostile part of the seabed, sonar readings flagged something that doesn't match any known natural formation."It stood out as an extreme anomaly pointing to the potential MH370 crash site. Yet, inconsistencies in blended sonar and satellite altimeter data introduced some location uncertainty, despite the unmistakable extreme anomaly."Dr Lyne is convinced the crash wasn't accidental. He argues it was deliberately planned to end exactly where it did, in a place designed to hide the wreckage from the world.'That pre-meditated iconic location harbours a very deep 6000m hole at the eastern end of the Broken Ridge... a perfect 'hiding' place.'The terrain, he says, is no accident. It's unforgiving, rarely studied, and ideal for vanishing without a trace.He suggests whoever was in control of the plane tried to hit the centre of the hole but made a misjudgement, instead colliding with the steep slope and sliding down."A very rugged and dangerous ocean environment with narrow steep sides, surrounded by massive ridges and other deep holes," is how Lyne describes the area.Dr Lyne isn't the only one who suspects MH370 was deliberately taken off course.In the 2024 BBC documentary Why Planes Vanish: The Hunt for MH370, former air traffic control manager Jean-Luc Marchand and retired pilot Patrick Blelly used a Boeing 777 simulator to reconstruct the final known flight path. Their conclusion? This wasn't a systems failure. Someone knew exactly what they were doing."Now the aircraft is invisible and not traceable any more. It's clever because the choice of the area where the aircraft disappeared is really a black hole between Kuala Lumpur and Vietnam. If you want to disappear, this is where you do it," said Marchand.They pointed to the sharp U-turn MH370 made after passing waypoint IGARI, flying back across the Malay peninsula and up the Malacca Strait, hugging the boundaries of various airspaces to stay undetected."It demands attention and skill. That's why we believe it was not an accident... We're convinced that only an experienced pilot could do it," said Blelly.Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, the plane's pilot, has long been the focus of speculation. Some suggest it was a murder-suicide. Others believe he was innocent. The official Malaysian report, released in 2018, concluded that the plane was 'manually manipulated' to change its course but did not name a culprit.Former Prime Minister Najib Razak later said that while nothing was ruled out, blaming the pilot without black box data would be 'unfair and legally irresponsible.'Over 30 fragments confirmed or suspected to be from MH370 have washed ashore in places like Mozambique, Madagascar, and Reunion Island. But none of them have told us why the plane vanished or where the fuselage lies.Previous massive search operations — including one in 2018 by Ocean Infinity — failed to find anything conclusive. But new data and new tools may change that.Earlier this year, Ocean Infinity launched what might be the final search. Their vessel, Armada 7806, arrived in late February to scour a fresh patch of seafloor 1,200 miles off Perth.This new search is being conducted under a 'no-find, no-fee' agreement. If successful, Ocean Infinity could earn up to $70 million. Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke announced that the approved zone covers 15,000 square kilometres.Dr Lyne wants his findings taken seriously. He's urging officials to examine the anomaly and compare it with historical satellite data and sonar records."This is the strongest direct physical evidence yet," he said, calling for "urgent action".For families of the 239 missing passengers and crew, that urgency is not academic. It's personal. They've waited over a decade for answers.If this anomaly is what Dr Lyne believes it to be, then the mystery of MH370 may finally have a precise location and perhaps, in time, the world will have a reckoning with what really happened that night in March 2014.