Wreckage could finally solve mystery of MH370 air crash

A pilot on the lost flight MH370 lowered the doomed Boeing 777's landing gear in the last seconds of flight, suggesting a possible criminal intent behind one of the world's greatest aviation mysteries. Damage to a landing gear door from the Malaysian Airlines aircraft, found in the possession of a Madagascan fisherman 25 days ago, is the first physical evidence to suggest one of the pilots deliberately acted to quickly destroy and sink the jet with 239 people on board. Identified as a Boeing 777 landing gear component, known as a trunnion door, the wreckage has most likely been penetrated from the inside by the aircraft's disintegrating engines, making it highly probable the landing gear was down when the aircraft crashed into the southern Indian Ocean on March 8, 2014. The finding of the crucial piece of wreckage was not announced until Monday but has prompted calls for an urgent further investigation into the fate of the 12 Malaysian crew members and 227 passengers from 14 different nations who are presumed to have died. The new analysis, by Richard Godfrey, a British engineer, and Blaine Gibson, an American MH370 wreckage hunter, suggests the airliner was crashed quickly and deliberately. When airliners have to emergency-land on water, pilots do not normally lower the undercarriage because the extended landing gear will dig into the water, disrupting contact with the surface and increasing the risk of violent breakup as the aircraft slows. Pilots are trained to perform emergency landings with landing gear retracted for a controlled, low-speed ditching. The flaps on flight MH370 are thought not to have been retracted to slow the aircraft, and extending the landing gear would have caused the immediate breakup of the fuselage once the Boeing hit the Indian Ocean at high speed. Deploying the landing gear would also increase the chances of an airliner sinking quickly, limiting the time for any survivors to evacuate.<br/>