A former Australian naval officer claims authorities were searching for missing flight MH370 in the wrong area a year after the plane's mysterious disappearance.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared over the South China Sea on March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China.
The mysterious case made headlines around the world when the plane carrying 239 people, including six Australians, seemingly disappeared without a trace.
Peter Waring was appointed deputy head of the search in September 2014, but said he had “serious doubts” about the conduct of the investigation in May 2015.
Former naval officer Peter Waring was appointed deputy head of operations for the search in September 2014, but said he had “serious doubts” about the conduct of the investigation in May 2015
Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared over the South China Sea on March 8, 2014, during a flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China (stock image)
“At various points we made it seem like we had a very good sense of where it was, but that just wasn't the case,” he told Sky News.
“We had absolutely, more or less, next to nothing.”
“Over time, the operation became, if you will, wrapped up in a bureaucratic web, and that made it more difficult to change course.”
His comments come ahead of Sky News' release of the documentary MH370: Ten Years On on Tuesday evening.
Mr Waring, a former naval lieutenant, said despite indications that the plane may be in another area, the search operation was unable to change course.
“In some ways we had become locked into this one particular area and didn't have the flexibility to look elsewhere when there was evidence that maybe it was elsewhere,” he said.
He said by mid-2015 enough seabed had been covered to refute the “main assumption” that the plane crashed into the Indian Ocean near an area known as the 7th Arc.
Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared over the South China Sea on March 8, 2014, during a flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China (in July 2015, police officers were seen picking up debris from unidentified aircraft in the French Indian Ocean transported).
“If that assumption had been correct, we would have found the aircraft at that point,” he said.
Speaking to Sky News presenter Peter Stefanovic in the documentary, Mr Waring said there was no “Plan B” in the search and they would move further away from areas where the plane was likely to be.
He also did not know why the Australian Transport Safety Bureau was appointed to lead the search operation.
“But the question really needs to be asked as to why the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is an aircraft investigation agency, not a search and rescue agency, not an organization that has experience of conducting a search, why they have been given responsibility for it.” One of the largest and most expensive searches in human history,” he said in the documentary.
Mr Waring said the approaching 10th anniversary of MH370's disappearance was just “another reminder of the failure” of the search mission.
“The fact that we are no closer to finding the plane now than we were when we spent millions and millions of dollars eight to 10 years ago,” he said.
However, 77-year-old Australian fisherman Kit Olver claimed last year that his trawler appeared to lift the wing of a commercial aircraft in late 2014.
He claims he was fishing in the Southern Ocean about 55 kilometers off the southeast coast of South Australia when his net got caught on something large.
“It was a bloody big wing of a large airliner,” Mr. Olver said.
“I asked myself. I was looking for a way out.
“I wish to God I'd never seen that thing… but there it was. It was the wing of a jet.”
Because he held a pilot's license, Mr. Olver was confident that the wing was larger than any on a typical private aircraft.
His discovery was confirmed by Mr Waring, who said it was “plausible” that debris from the wreck was found in South Australia, considering more than 20 possible pieces of wreckage have been discovered in Africa.