Sonar and hydrophone recordings may hold the answer to the enigma perplexing MH370's disappearance.

Sonar and hydrophone recordings may hold the answer to the enigma perplexing MH370's disappearance.

For nearly a decade, the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has left everyone scratching their heads. But now, British researchers think they may have found a clue: a signal that could lead them to the plane's wreckage.

On March 8, 2014, Flight MH370 vanished from the radar of Malaysia Airlines' control tower at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Since then, no legitimate explanation for its disappearance has been found. But new evidence might finally solve this mystery.

Apparently, underwater microphones, also known as hydrophones, picked up a signal whose recording corresponds to the same timeframe as MH370's disappearance. The British Daily Mail reported this discovery, made by researchers from Cardiff. They suspect that further tests are needed to confirm whether these sounds truly lead to the crash site of the aircraft.

Underwater microphones might offer answers

It's believed that the Boeing 777, carrying 239 passengers, ran out of fuel. After veering off course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing for unknown reasons, the plane is presumed to have crashed into the Indian Ocean. Since then, debris fragments of the aircraft have been discovered, and numerous theories abound about what or who caused the plane to veer off course. However, no one knows for certain what happened to MH370.

The Cardiff researchers starting point was the hypothesis that a 200-tonne aircraft like MH370 would release as much kinetic energy as a small earthquake upon crashing into the water at a speed of 200 meters per second. This kinetic energy should have been sufficient to be detected by underwater microphones even from thousands of kilometers away. Two such microphones - one in western Australia at Cape Leeuwin and one before the British atoll Diego Garcia - are said to have been close enough to capture such a signal.

Originally set up to detect potential breaches of the nuclear testing ban underwater, these hydrophones are only a few minutes' signal travel time away from the last known radar contact with MH370.

The newly discovered signal, according to researcher Usama Kadri in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, raises "questions about its origin." Kadri states that the signal measurement doesn't allow for any definitive conclusions yet. However, he considers it "highly unlikely" that the sensitive underwater microphones would have failed to register the impact of a large aircraft on the ocean.

Simulated implosion with grenades

Kadri's team thinks that further investigation of the new signal could finally reveal the truth about MH370. Similar hydrophone recordings helped already in the localization of the ARA San Juan, an Argentine submarine that imploded and sank in the South Atlantic a year after its disappearance and was eventually found on the ocean floor. To locate the submarine wreck, researchers mimicked the explosion of the submarine with grenades and compared this signal with the signal recorded by the hydrophones when it imploded.

This comparative analysis eventually led them to the remains of the ARA San Juan, which were 460 kilometers off the Argentine coast at a depth of almost 88 meters below the water surface. Kadri suggests conducting a similar experiment to find the wreckage of MH370. If a connection is established, in his opinion, this would significantly narrow down the location of the aircraft, or even almost precisely determine it.

Read also:

1. The discovery of a potential signal, which corresponds to the time of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370's disappearance, has sparked interest in the Australian region, as hydrophones located in Western Australia at Cape Leeuwin and before the British atoll Diego Garcia may have captured it.
2. The international community is closely watching developments in the search for MH370, as the discovery of such a signal could potentially lead to the location of the Boeing 777, which carried 239 passengers, that vanished on its route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in 2014.
3. The Malaysian aviation industry, in particular, is keenly following the investigation, as the potential discovery of MH370 could have significant implications for the reputation of the Boeing 777 aircraft, which has been heavily used in Malaysian aviation.

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