Malaysia Flight 370: time running out for black box

Time is of the essence as searchers enter what appears to be the final phase in the hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Canadian pilot Chris Goodfellow says.

In about two weeks, the “black box” cockpit voice recorder and a flight data recorder on Flight 370 will stop emitting a pinging sound and go silent.

That will make it far harder to find, said Goodfellow, 66, a former Quebec resident now living in Florida.

“If there is no ping, that’s a whole other kettle of fish,” Goodfellow said in an interview on Thursday. “It’s deep water.”

Goodfellow said he’s confident that searchers are looking in the right general area now, after two large pieces debris were reported on Wednesday in the waters of the Indian Ocean, about a four-hour flight from Australia’s southwest coast.

Satellite images detected the large debris in an area where Goodfellow predicted the plane might have gone down after it vanished on March 8.

One of the objects was estimated to be 24 metres and the other 5 metres.

“They’ve got eyeballs in the right place,” Goodfellow said.

His Google Plus blog has gone viral, including reposting and a favorable critique in The Atlantic.

His theory is that the aircraft made a 90-degree turn off its planned flight path, after the crew detected smoke onboard from a fire, perhaps caused by a poorly inflated tire or an improperly stored cargo of batteries.

He began posting his thoughts after he was troubled by what he considered wildly unfair speculation about terrorism, hijacking, suicide and even meteors as the cause for the airline’s disappearance.

In his more simple hypothesis, the experienced pilot for Flight 370 would have made the sharp turn off course to prepare for an emergency landing on a large 13,000-foot runway on the island of Langkawi, Goodfellow said.

Goodfellow wrote that this would be a logical route for the pilots, who are trained to always have a safe alternate landing spot in mind.

Goodfellow, a former Class 1, instrument-trained pilot licensed to fly in all weather conditions, has routinely turned down interview requests from the major American television networks.

He also spoke with Sydney, Australia radio station 2UE.

He told the Star that he’s confident, but not positive, that the search for the aircraft is in its final stages.

“I have over 50 per cent confidence this morning that this is a piece of the aircraft,” he said.

He said he’s confident the black boxes and fuselage will be found.

“It’s going to be a long process to find the main body of the aircraft.”

He said he feels for the families of the 239 people onboard. If its debris from the airliner that has been spotted, then there’s no reason for hope that there might be survivors.

“The world embraces them and the process of closure starts,” Goodfellow said. “My thoughts are still with the families.”