Pilot calls for a fresh search for missing jet MH370 around Madagascar as he claims the doomed flight was hijacked before it vanished in 2014 with 239 people on board
- There's 'zero possibility' the transporter stopped working by accident
- Ex-pilot Randy Ryan said 'I don't think an amateur could have done it'
- He believes the flight either crash-landed into the sea or landed on dry land
- Mr Ryan said the culprits 'knew how to avoid detection'
A retired pilot has called for the search for missing flight MH370 to centre around Madagascar over fears it was hijacked.
Ex-US Air Force and United Airlines captain Randy Ryan believes the plane was bound in that direction before it crashed into the sea or was landed on dry land.
A mammoth search effort ensued but all that has been found of the missing jet, which disappeared on March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing with 239 people on board, was bits of debris.
Mr Ryan said he thinks the transponder was deliberately shut down as there was 'zero possibility' it could have been switched off accidentally.
The former Boeing pilot told the Daily Star Online said the manoeuvre allowed the alleged culprit to fly the plane off-radar, leaving air traffic controllers wondering what had happened.
Retired pilot Randy Ryan believes 'hijacked' MH370 should be centred on around the area of Madagascar
Mr Ryan said: 'I think the captain, or co-pilot, does everything normally during the pre-flight.
'They take off and climb and level off. They had properly programmed the flight computer to fly the correct course to their destination.
'Everything seems normal, but one of them – maybe both but I doubt it – now does in the other pilot and takes control of the plane.
'He makes the turn toward the west. He does this very slowly so nobody in the darkened cabin notices the turn.'
He added: 'The plane continues to fly west, maybe even to Madagascar, or maybe, if not all the way there, he turns again and lands it somewhere pre-planned.
'So far what little debris that has been found was all found on the westerly route I am suggesting it was flown.
'Yes, I know it sounds sinister and they did find a part of the wing that was damaged when, or if, it hit the water but remember where it was found (east of Madagascar).
'Again along the route I believe it was flown, and not to the southwest of Australia where they spent so much time searching.
'If anybody still has the money to search for the plane this is where I think they should search.'
Indonesian fisherman Rusli Khusmin, 42, recently claimed he and his crew members were eyewitnesses to the disaster and has handed over the co-coordinators to investigators to the spot where he said it crashed into the Sumatra sea.
He recorded the information on a GPS device and held up a map to show reporters earlier this month.
Rusli Khusmin, 42, a fisherman from Indonesia, shows his GPS navigator which he used to record the co-ordinates of the spot where he believes MH370 went down
Malaysia president Dr Jacob George shows the co-ordinates of where the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 is believed to have crashed
Fishermen claim this is the location the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 ditched into the Malacca Strait near Sumatra, Indonesia
Mr Khusmin at a news conference in Subang Jaya, near Kuala Lumpur where MH370 took off, said he remembered seeing a damaged aircraft and thick black smoke.
'I saw the plane moving from left to right like a broken kite,' he said. 'There was no noise, just black smoke as a result of fires before it crashed into the water.'
But he failed to explain why it had taken him almost five years to get in touch with the authorities with the information.
The Malaysian government halted the investigation after drawing a blank and are still at a loss as to what happened to the airplane.
Various theories have abounded with conspiracists linking both Russian leader Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to its disappearance.
Recent debris discovered on the African island believed to be 'likely' from the missing jet.
Meanwhile, a flaperon understood to be from MH370 was found on Reunion Island back in 2015, around 425 miles east of Madagascar.
Jacquita Gonzales, (right) the wife of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 steward Patrick Gomes, and Grace Subathirai Nathan (left), daughter of MH370 passenger Anne Daisy, show pieces of debris (believed to be from flight MH370 before handing over to Malaysia Transport Minister Anthony Loke in Putrajaya last November
Bits of debris from the plane have been discovered but the plane itself remains missing after the Malaysian Government halted its investigation following its 2014 investigation
Mr Ryan has admitted if investigators are right about the debris it 'pokes a pretty big hole' in his theory that it landed on land.
A recent Gendarmerie Air Transport (GAT) probe appears to back his claim that someone on board may have had knowledge of how to hack the plane's communications system.
Ghyslain Wattrelos – who lost his wife and two children on the Boeing 777-200 – said GAT was currently looking into a Malaysian national and aeronautics specialist on board.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) took the view the plane turned west above the South China Sea around 40 minutes into its journey from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing thanks to Inmarsat satellite data.
Following the probe,investigators said it headed west across the Peninsula Malaysia before turning left again and crashing into the Indian Ocean, west of Australia, after running out of fuel while the transponder was non-operational.
The ex-pilot believes the plane initially went left but 'not convinced' it made a second and made clear his view it went to Madagascar instead.
In the wake of the suggestion the transponder stopped operating, Mr Ryan said: 'That does not happen, there's a zero possibility that happened by accident.'
He continued: 'They knew how to avoid detection. I don't think an amateur could have done it, the only way an amateur could have done anything like this is to get in to the cockpit, kill both pilots, sit down in a seat and hand fly the airplane.
'But it's a complex airplane. The amateur wouldn't know that stuff (switching off the transponder).'
Blaine Gibson, the self-styled wreck hunter, firmly believes missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, will be found — just as a new private search is about to begin this month in the southern Indian Ocean.
An ATSB spokesman said: 'The Australian Transport Safety Bureau's (ATSB) involvement in coordinating the underwater search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 concluded in early 2017, and the Australia Government currently has no involvement in the search for, or the investigation of, the missing aircraft.
'The ATSB has been asked to direct members of the public wishing to provide information that could lead to locating the missing aircraft.
'For the sake of the next-of-kin of those on board the aircraft and for determining a definitive cause of the loss of the aircraft and all on board, the ATSB remains hopeful that the aircraft will be located.'
A Boeing spokesman added: 'Should credible new information emerge that results in government authorities resuming the search, Boeing stands ready to provide technical support as requested by the government investigating authorities.'
