Plane wreckage believed to be from MH370 displayed during an event held by relatives of the passengers to mark the 10th year since the aircraft disappeared (Picture: AFP)
Missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 could be found within days if the search is started up again, an aerospace engineer believes.
Richard Godfrey, who worked for Boeing, Airbus and Nasa before his retirement, is convinced he has found an entirely new system of tracking planes using radio signals.
He has been trying to persuade governments to look again – and hopes new research and the ten year anniversary of the flight going missing could provide new impetus for the search.
It comes as seabed exploration firm Ocean Infinity has put itself forward to look again on a ‘no find no fee’ basis, offering fresh hope to families.
V.P.R. Nathan, a retired air traffic controller whose wife Anne Daisy was on the plane, told Metro.co.uk he is cautiously hopeful about the new developments.
Speaking to Metro from a dinner with other relatives of those on board the flight, he said: ‘On paper the science is correct.
Retired aerospace engineer Richard Godfrey is calling for the search to resume (Picture: Nine)
‘There are two schools of thought – some say it can’t be done but others say it is possible.’
He said he didn’t want to second guess what Ocean Infinity might do, as they have their own analysts and would be evaluating any claims about the flight’s location.
But he added of the region pinpointed by Richard Godfrey: ‘It’s a small area; they could search it in a short time.’
In the ten years since the flight disappeared on March 8 2014, Godfrey estimates he has volunteered his time for eight hours a day every day trying to make a breakthrough.
Resolute that with modern technology there is no aviation mystery which cannot be solved, he has put in years to diligently piece together the ‘breadcrumbs’ which could finally lead to answers.
The technology he is pioneering uses something called Weak Signal Propagation Reporter, known as WSPR, an open source computer programme recording the location of weak radio signals between amateur radio operators. Tiny changes in these signals could have been caused by air disruption from aeroplanes, Godfrey says.
By plotting these minute changes, he believes he can discern the course of MH370 much more accurately than previous attempts made using techniques such as putting a piece of plane wing in the sea to track how it drifts with the current.
It’s a complicated concept that most without expertise won’t fully understand – but he claims he has narrowed down a search area to 30 square kilometres, to an area of the Southern Indian Ocean just outside where previous efforts have scoured the sea bed.
V.P.R. Nathan, pictured centre in blue shirt
‘I’m absolutely convinced it will only take one more search and we will find MH370,’ he told a BBC documentary on the missing flight which will screen tonight.
Researchers at Liverpool University are also trying to prove the efficacy of using WSPR to track planes.
Professor Simon Maskell told the documentary it is ‘completely conceivable’ that it can be used for this purpose.
He said his team is creating a computer programme which will attempt to track every plane in the sky over a 24-hour period using the radio signals.
‘If it achieves a high success rate it will be compelling evidence that the technique works,’ he said.
‘If WSPR works we will know where the plane was when it hit the ocean, and then we can go and and get it. And that will be a great day.’
But claims about the final landing place of MH370 have the potential to cause controversy among those so desperate to find answers, Nathan said, with the possibility of giving false hope.
He said his standard answer to the question of where the flight could be is that ‘only God knows’.
Some answers have already been found about what became of the flight, with pieces of the wreckage washing up on beaches to confirm that it did indeed crash and come apart on impact.
But so far there are no conclusive answers about why the plane veered so far off course when it crossed from Malaysian into Vietnamese airspace, or where it finally hit the sea.
If the new tracking method is shown to work, it is possible teams could retrieve the fuselage and the black box data recorders and give closure to the families of the 239 people on board.
Asked whether he believed the flight would be found, Nathan said: ‘Ships lost for 300 years have been found.
‘It will be found – but whether it is in my lifetime or not, I don’t know.
‘We have been fighting for ten years. We never wanted the search to be abandoned.’
‘BBC This World: Why Planes Vanish: The Hunt for MH370’ screens tonight at 8pm on BBC1.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.