Not finding much debris led them to believe that the plane fell in a controlled manner. If it fell at high speed, for example 200 knots (370km/h), “it would create hundreds of thousands of pieces of debris”, Marchand said.
They concluded that an experienced and skilled pilot managed to control the plane until the end, flying it off Malaysian radar and across another country’s border, avoiding detection before it finally crashed in the Indian Ocean.
“Without officially accusing the pilot, we cannot deny (him) because he is experienced and an instructor pilot,” Marchand said. “Until we find the pieces, we’ll never know.”
The emergence of various theories only adds to the frustration for Jacquita Gonzales, 61. She lives with the trauma of losing her husband, Patrick Gonzales, who was on the plane as a cabin crew supervisor.
“Everyone says ‘maybe this, maybe that.’ “I said, ‘Too many probably, … nothing has been confirmed,'” he said. “We don’t have any sort of X like on a pirate map to mark the location of treasure.”
