A decade on from the MH370 aviation mystery, a British Boeing 777 pilot has claimed that the flight’s take-off documents are clues that the pilot pre-meditated a mass murder-suicide. Simon Hardy believes that the Malaysian Airlines flight plan and technical log reveal last-minute changes to the cargo including an additional 3,000kg of fuel and extra oxygen that indicate Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah directed the plane “to oblivion”. Hardy, who worked with the ATSB during the search in 2015, told The Sun: “It’s a strange coincidence that the last engineering task that was done before it headed off to oblivion was topping up crew oxygen which is only for the cockpit, not for the cabin crew.” The aviation expert called the additions to the flight “bizarre” and said that they didn’t meet the official requirements to justify the changes. Hardy also said that the flaperon found on Reunion Island indicates there was an active pilot until the end of the flight: “If the flaps were down, there is a liquid fuel, then someone is moving a lever and it’s someone who knows what they are doing. It all points to the same scenario.” He determined that the pilot had to have “planned meticulously” to time the crash and avoid leaving a trace of fuel residue on the surface of the ocean that would indicate the plane’s final destination. Like many other theorists, he points to a depressurisation of the cabin by the pilot to knock the 239 passengers unconscious as the pilot made a U-turn to ditch the plane in the ocean. Combined with a trail of “satellite clues” Hardy believes he has calculated the position of the missing aircraft – just outside the official 7th arc search area – in the Geelvinck Fracture Zone of the Southern Indian Ocean, a trench hundreds of miles long.<br/>
oneworld
Finnair has decided to fuel many of its aircraft overseas due to the political strikes that began in Finland on Monday, reveals Helsingin Sanomat. A protest against a series of government proposals on labour market reforms by the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK), the two-week strikes are expected to cause widespread disruptions in cargo handling at ports, rail freight transport and process industries. Mia Eloranta, the director of communications at Finnair, told Helsingin Sanomat on Monday that the majority state-owned airline will re-fuel aircraft operating on continental routes in the destination countries. “This is an attempt to save fuel in Helsinki,” she added. Long-haul flights operated by the airline, in turn, will make additional re-fuelling stops at airports in Europe. Eloranta estimated that the stops will increase flight times by roughly an hour. “Today we’ll start testing and exploring where the layovers can be made,” she said to the newspaper. Staged by the Finnish Industrial Union, the Finnish Transport Workers’ Union (AKT), the Finnish Electrical Workers’ Union, the Finnish Construction Trade Union, Service Union United (PAM) and the Trade Union for the Public and Welfare Sectors (JHL), the strikes are targeted at, for example, the distribution centres of Neste in Naantali and Porvoo. The Industrial Union gauged last week that the strikes could cause fuel shortages at airports and service stations, an estimate that has been rejected by experts and the National Emergency Supply Agency. The agency has instead estimated that “local disruptions” may occur in fuel distribution.<br/>
Biofuel refiner Jet Zero Australia said on Tuesday it had received new funding commitments of A$29m ($19.2m) from Idemitsu, Qantas and Airbus for its flagship Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) project. It marks the first investment by Japanese oil refiner Idemitsu Kosan in a SAF project outside Japan, and was supported by Jet Zero Australia's foundational investors, including Qantas and Airbus, Jet Zero said in a statement. Qantas and Airbus last year said it would jointly invest A$2m in the project. Both companies in 2022 set up a $200m fund to help meet Qantas' goal of using at least 10% of SAF in its fuel mix by 2030 after the airline placed a multibillion-dollar order for Airbus planes. The refinery, to be set up in the state of Queensland, will convert bioethanol from domestic agricultural by-products into sustainable fuels. It is expected to produce up to 102m litres of SAF a year and 11m litres of renewable diesel once operational.<br/>