RUSSIA may have planted pieces of fake debris after hijacking missing flight MH370 because barnacles found on them are too young, according to an aviation expert demanding a fresh investigation.
Jeff Wise, a pilot, has long theorised MH370 was flown to Kazakhstan by Russian hijackers on board in March, 2014.
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| Jeff Wise theorises that Russia may have been behind MH370's disappearance |
Pieces of debris from the plane have washed ashore since it mysteriously vanished.
But Wise is demanding a re-examination, because he believes the age of marine life on pieces of debris does not match the length of time between their discovery and MH370's disappearance.
Wise – a science, technology and aviation author – told Daily Star Online: "The pieces were supposed to have been in the water for around two years.
"But the marine life found on these pieces was like a month old, this all came out in the final report.
"It suggests the pieces were planted. It allows for the possibility the debris was planted."
He added: "It's not a smoking gun, it's just curious."
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau believe Lepas anatifera barnacles – found on debris that washed up in Reunion and Rodrigues Island, Mauritius, both in the Indian Ocean – were less than one month old.
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| Barnacles assessed by the ATSB were judged to be less than a month old |
Its report, The Operational Search for MH370, reads: "It could be assumed the specimens analysed here were quite young, perhaps less than one month."
Professor of Marine Biology at University of Plymouth, Jason Hall-Spencer, told this website he also would have expected more growth on the debris.
Because the water in the Indian Ocean isn't fresh there is a better chance of marine growth, he said.
But he added there are multiple reasons it could have been stripped of marine life after crashing into the Indian Ocean west of Australia, as ruled by the official investigation.
Prof Hall-Spencer told Daily Star Online: "I would have expected, if it's been in the water for that long, it would have a lot more marine life on it.
"But there may have been something that happened to the object.
"For example if it got washed into an estuary, the fresh water is going to kill everything on it."
He added the power of the sun in the Indian Ocean may have killed marine life too, if the debris had been flipped over.
Prof Hall-Spencer continued: "It's difficult to gauge if an object has been in the sea for its maximum time.
"You can get a minimum time for sure, if there's something on there that's a month old then obviously, it's been in the sea for a month, but you can't tell if it's been in there for longer, because things drop off so it's difficult to tell."
The ATSB report also reads: "We are also unable to tell if the barnacles we examined grew continuously once attached to the aircraft debris, or stopped growing at some stage for several possible reasons such as lack of food supply and/or temperatures unsuitable for growth, or exposure outside water."
Wise, who penned the book The Plane That Wasn't There: Why We Haven't Found Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, still holds Russia as a possible suspect if this theory bares any truth.
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| MH370 went missing in March 2014 |
His suspicion centres on the shooting down of flight MH17 by a Russian military missile, and how the Kremlin's annexation of Crimea fell off the news radar in the wake of MH370's disappearance.
He told us: "What's the motive? I can tell you this was happening in the context of Russia getting a lot of heat for the annexation of Crimea.
"I was on CNN six times a day, and CNN didn't talk about Crimea anymore, they only talked about MH370 and so it was possible a diversion, a show of dominance.
"Because if I'm right and Russia did take the plane, they completely fooled, ran circles, the western authorities and experts have been completely bamboozled, with their pants caught down.
"I would say, only one other 777 has ever been lost mid-flight, that was the sistership of MH370.
"It was shot down by an operation carried out by the GRU. If you're a chicken farmer, and you've never lost a chicken in 15 years, then you find one of your chickens murdered, and a week later you see a fox jumping over the fence with a chicken in its mouth, what would you think?
"What would be your primary suspect here? The only known cause of 777s coming to grief."
Investigators said the flaperon of MH370 washed up in Reunion, although it is not clear if ATSB are referring to this when they mention marine life less than a month old.
Inmarsat data was used by investigators to predict that the plane crashed into the Indian Ocean, using a series of "handshakes", known as pings between the aircraft and a satellite.
But Wise points to Kazakhstan as a possible location, because it falls under a radius zone mapped out by Inmarsat.
The plane went missing during a handover between Malaysian and Vietnamese air traffic controllers on March 8, 2014, on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.
A four-year search did not find the plane.
Its disappearance was last week thrust back into the limelight after a Frenchman, who lost his wife and two kids on the plane, said investigators were following up on a new hacking lead.
And it also hit the news agenda again after a video producer claimed to have spotted MH370 on Google Maps.