A campaign video has been released promising a whistleblower reward in an attempt to find the truth, the plane and the passengers. Courtesy: YouTube/Sunny Min

A campaign video has been released promising a whistleblower reward in an attempt to find the truth, the plane and the passengers. Courtesy: YouTube/Sunny Min

TIM Clark is no MH370 conspiracy theory crackpot.

As the recently knighted Emirates president and CEO told Aviation Week in July: “Something is not right here and we need to get to the bottom of it.”

Now, seven months after the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, Sir Tim has cast doubt on the official version of events.

In an extraordinary interview with German magazine Der Spiegel, he challenges the Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s conclusion this week that MH370 flew south over the Indian Ocean on autopilot for five hours until it ran out of fuel and fell out of the sky, forcing 239 passengers into a watery grave.

Instead, Sir Tim believes it is far more likely that “MH370 was under control, probably until the very end”, questions the veracity of the “so-called electronic satellite ‘handshake’” used by analysts to pinpoint the probable crash site and insists the mysterious cargo in the hold (removed from the manifest by Malaysian authorities) is a crucial clue to the puzzle.

That an aircraft the size of MH370 can simply disappear without a trace, “not even a seat cushion” was downright “suspicious”, he said.

The executive has vowed that he will not rest until the truth is known, declaring: “I will continue to ask questions and make a nuisance of myself, even as others would like to bury it.”

And as the head of the largest operator of the Boeing 777 in the world (Emirates has a fleet of 127), “I need to know how anybody could interdict our systems”.

Investigators have said the plane’s tracking systems were deliberately disabled by somebody with extensive aviation knowledge in order to take it off radar.

A campaign video has been released promising a whistleblower reward in an attempt to find the truth, the plane and the passengers. Courtesy: YouTube/Sunny Min A campaign video has been released promising a whistleblower reward in an attempt to find the truth, the plane and the passengers. Courtesy: YouTube/Sunny Min

Here are the highlights from the controversial Der Spiegel interview:

What do you think happened?

Clark: My own view is that probably control was taken of that airplane. It’s anybody’s guess who did what. We need to know who was on the plane in the detail that obviously some people do know. We need to know what was in the hold of the aircraft. And we need to continue to press all those who were involved in the analysis of what happened for more information. I do not subscribe to the view that the Boeing 777, which is one of the most advanced in the world and has the most advanced communication platforms, needs to be improved with the introduction of some kind of additional tracking system. MH 370 should never have been allowed to enter a non-trackable situation.

What do you mean by that?

Clark: The transponders are under the control of the flight deck. These are tracking devices, aircraft identifiers that work in the secondary radar regime. If you turn off that transponder in a secondary radar regime, that particular airplane disappears from the radar screen. That should never be allowed to happen. Irrespective of when the pilot decides to disable the transponder, the aircraft should be able to be tracked.

What about other monitoring methods?

Clark: The other means of constantly monitoring the progress of an aircraft is ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System). It is designed primarily for companies to monitor what its planes are doing. We use it to monitor aircraft systems and engine performance. At Emirates, we track every single aircraft from the ground, every component and engine of the aircraft at any point on the planet. Very often, we are able to track systemic faults before the pilots do.

How might it have been possible to disable that tracking system?

Clark: Disabling it is no simple thing and our pilots are not trained to do so. But on flight MH 370, this thing was somehow disabled, to the degree that the ground tracking capability was eliminated. We must find systems to allow ACARS to continue uninterrupted, irrespective of who is controlling the aircraft. If you have that, with the satellite constellations that we have today even in remote ocean regions, we still have monitoring capability. So you don’t have to introduce additional tracking systems.

What, then, are you proposing?

Clark: My recommendation to aircraft manufacturers that they find a way to make it impossible to disable ACARS from the flight deck. And the transponder as well. I’m still struggling to come up with a reason why a pilot should be able to put the transponder into standby or to switch it off. MH 370 was, in my opinion, under control, probably until the very end.

If that is the case, then why would the pilots spend five hours heading straight towards Antarctica?

Clark: If they did! I am saying that all the “facts” of this particular incident must be challenged and examined with full transparency. We are nowhere near that. There is plenty of information out there, which we need to be far more forthright, transparent and candid about. Every single second of that flight needs to be examined up until it, theoretically, ended up in the Indian Ocean — for which they still haven’t found a trace, not even a seat cushion.

Does that surprise you? The possible crash area west of Australia is vast and the search there only began following considerable delays.

Clark: Our experience tells us that in water incidents, where the aircraft has gone down, there is always something. We have not seen a single thing that suggests categorically that this aircraft is where they say it is, apart from this so-called electronic satellite “handshake,” which I question as well.

At what point on the presumed flight path of MH370 do your doubts begin?

Clark: There hasn’t been one overwater incident in the history of civil aviation — apart from Amelia Earhart in 1939 — that has not been at least five or 10 per cent trackable. But MH 370 has simply disappeared. For me, that raises a degree of suspicion. I’m totally dissatisfied with what has been coming out of all of this.

What can be done to improve the investigation’s transparency?

Clark: I’m not in a position to do it; I’m essentially an airline manager. But I will continue to ask questions and make a nuisance of myself, even as others would like to bury it. We have an obligation to the passengers and crew of MH 370 and their families. We have an obligation to not sweep this under the carpet, but to sort it out and do better than we have done.

MH 370 remains one of the great aviation mysteries. Personally, I have the concern that we will treat it as such and move on. At the most, it might then make an appearance on National Geographic as one of aviation’s great mysteries. We mustn’t allow this to happen. We must know what caused that airplane to disappear.