MH370 have been shot down by US-Thai exercise: Cawthorne

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2014-05-19

The cover of Nigel Cawthorne's new book.
(Internet Photo)

Malaysia Airlines flight 370, which despite a months long international effort still remains missing, may have been shot down accidentally during joint United States-Thai military exercises in the South China Sea, Nigel Cawthorne posits in the first book out on the aircraft disappeared on March 8.

"The drill was to involve mock warfare on land, water and air, and would have included live-fire exercises," said Cawthorne about the joint exercise in the book. It is not out of the realm of possibility that the MH370, which took off for Beijing, could have been shot down by a joint US-Thai joint strike fighter team. Despite the fact that aircraft, vessels and satellites from 26 nations were dispatched to participate in rescue operations, they were looking at wrong direction for cover up according to Cawthorne.

"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," said Cawthorne in his work. Search operations in the South Indian Ocean have yet to turn up any black box. "Even if the plane's black box is eventually found, it may not be the original black box," said Cawthorne.

While Cawthorne's claim seems to be controversial and suspicious and he has been criticized by the families of the passengers aboard the missing aircraft, he said that a man from New Zealand working on a oil rig in the Gulf of Thailand near the South China Sea personally witnessed the explosion of the MH370. Cawthorne said that the South Indian Ocean is not the right direction to conduct search and rescue operations for the plane.

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