New report's finding supports MH370 'zombie plane' theory

Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 suffered a sudden loss of electrical power before its disappearance, an official report has found.

The acknowledgment, published in the Australian Transport Bureau’s lengthy report last week, is the first official acknowledgement that a serious technical problem was triggered by a power outage, the Daily Best reported.

The finding backs the popular theory that the aircraft cruised over the Indian Ocean as a “zombie plane”, with the flight crew helpless to do anything because many of the plane’s vital systems had shut down due to the loss of electrical power.

Flight MH370 disappeared on March 8 last year while en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur with 239 passengers and crew on .

It is widely believed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean.

The Daily Best reported the findings greatly undercut theories that the pilots went rogue, portraying instead a ‘sudden crisis of control in the cockpit’ in which the pilots would have struggled to save the plane.

The loss of power would explain why the crew was no longer able to make regular contact with air traffic controllers and why the plane was unable to automatically transmit its position.

The ATB’s report places the electrical blackout inside a 56 minute window between the final scheduled contact from the jet’s Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System and a failed attempt from dispatchers to contact the crew.

It also lays out the possible reasons behind the power outage, which was caused either as a result of human intervention – as an action carried out in the cockpit using overhead switches, or someone gaining access to the Main Equipment Center – or the sudden onset of technical failures.

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Neither of these scenarios can be proven, the Daily Best contended, until the remains of the airplane are found.

One of the plane’s technological systems – its Satellite Data Unit (SDU) – managed to regain power 60 seconds after the blackout and it continued to operate, transmitting a series of pings to a satellite right up to the final seconds before the plane crashed.

It was these pings that allowed experts to locate the plane’s final position.

The report also details how the plane likely made its final descent after running out of fuel, its right engine giving out first, before it circles downwards and hits the water.