Missing Malaysia flight MH370 was in autopilot mode before it crashed, investigators have concluded.
A report by the Australian Transport Safety Board said that based on satellite information, the plane had very likely been set to autopilot before it coasted into the sea.
Commenting on yesterday’s report, aviation experts said the autopilot needs to be deliberately switched on, which suggests the plane did not suffer any major malfunction or catastrophe. This has led to more speculation about foul play.
Based on the limited evidence available on the March incident, and on previous air disasters, the Australian Transport Safety Board report was trying to establish a more precise location of the wreckage in order to aid the search.
It said passengers and crew on board most likely died from suffocation before the aircraft coasted into the sea, unaware of what was happening.
"The final stages of the unresponsive crew/hypoxia event type appeared to best fit the available evidence for the final period of MH370’s flight when it was heading in a general southerly direction," it said.
The report concluded that the plane was likely to have crashed further south in the Indian Ocean than previously believed.
As a result, Australian officials will shift the primary search area in the Southern Indian Ocean when the search operation resumes in August.
Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said the new search area of up to 60,000 square kilometres is located along the seventh arc, a thin but long line that marks where the missing aircraft last communicated with a satellite.
He told reporters in Canberra it was "highly, highly" like that the place was on autopilot or it could not have followed such an orderly path identified through satellite sightings.
The Chinese survey ship Zhu Kezhen and the Australian-contracted vessel Fugro Equator have begun conducting operations in the areas.
The search is already the most expensive in aviation history, so far costing more than AU$60 million.
Flight MH370 vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 with 239 passengers on board.
