A new book has made the shocking claim that the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was accidentally shot down in a military training exercise.
The aircraft was shot out of the sky in error as part of a joint US-Thai training mission, Anglo-American journalist and author Nigel Cawthorne says in his book, ‘Flight MH370: The Mystery’.
He also alleges that those searching for the plain were deliberately sent in the wrong direction as part of “an elaborate international cover-up”, reports British newspaper The Independent.
The flight going missing without a trace has caused anger among the relatives of the passengers.
Quoting the Sun-Herald, it reported Sunday that the book released about the lost plane will hit the book shelves in Australia on Monday.
Flight MH370, which was carrying carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, vanished on March 8 en route from Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, China 71 days ago.
The aircraft last had contact with air traffic controllers 120 nautical miles off the east coast of the Malaysian town of Kota Bharu.
Teams have been searching for the plane ever since, but so far not a single piece of debris has been identified.
The Independent says Cawthorne is “most famous for his Sex Lives series of “salacious tales” about the rich and famous”.
In the book, he also claimed that the families of MH370’s passengers will “almost certainly” never be sure what happened to their loved ones.
Based on the eye-witness testimony of New Zealand oil rig worker Mike McKay, the journalist, however, in the book went on to support one theory – the plane was shot down shortly after it stopped communicating with air traffic controllers, says The Independent.
The drill was taking place in the South China Sea involving Thailand, the US and personnel from China, Japan, Indonesia and others.
“(It) was to involve mock warfare on land, in water and in the air, and would include live-fire exercises,” the author said.
“Say a participant accidentally shot down Flight MH370. Such things do happen. No one wants another Lockerbie, so those involved would have every reason to keep quiet about it.”
He was referring to the Pan Am flight 103 which was bombed by terrorists in December 1988 killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew on board in an alleged retaliation for a US Navy strike on an Iranian commercial jet six months earlier.
Cawthorne in his book suggested that “another black box” could have been dropped off the coast of Australia to divert the efforts of search teams.
“After all, no wreckage has been found in the south Indian Ocean, which in itself is suspicious,” he wrote, according to the London-based Independent.
Meanwhile, families of the MH370 passengers have expressed anger over the book and Cawthorne’s new theory.