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MH370 Flying In The Clouds
Vincent Lyne 1*
1 Retired Scientist
Hobart. Tasmania. Australia
* Correspondence: Vincent.lyne@utas.edu.au
Abstract
Aircraft are well known to leave contrails at high altitude, or “holes” in thick billowing lower-
level clouds from hot exhaust turbulence and cooling of air over the wings. These can last for
several hours. The day MH370 disappeared was a very cloudy day, especially during its final
descent phase. The ocean had to be surveyed (at least that is what I thought) before reaching
the landing site, so it’s reasonable to assume that it punched through the clouds near the 7th arc;
a point at which it was in a proven, controlled but steep descent for the landing phase. Is it
possible to verify that it did punch through the clouds? As a precautionary study, I investigated
the Terra/MODIS cloud data and found not just a hole, but very surprisingly, an apparent trail
of cloud anomalies in the Corrected Reflectance (True Color) image. Despite 2 hours and 48
minutes elapsing since the 7th-arc descent, the cloud imprint was obvious and consistent with
what I expected to find from MH370 flying within the clouds. In retrospect, it was an obvious
tactic to avoid detection and to minimize time to the landing location. An overlay of the “Cloud
Top Height” data showed a very remarkable, unmistakable, and isolated trail of very anomalous
height-fluctuations from 4 km (general height) to over 10 km (very abnormal height),
associated (in an unknown way) with the trail punching through the clouds intermittently and
leaving imprints within the clouds and an apparent signature above. The distance from source
(at the event time), directions, wind speed/direction, and length of anomaly-trail, are all very
consistent and plausible with the trail being made from the 7th-arc. This trail ends precisely
very near the final destination at the Penang Longitude Deep Hole. The observed average north-
eastward cloud drift speed of about 104 km/hr also matches a theoretically predicted wind-
profile drift-speed of ~96 km/hr. Nearly 7 hours later, the trail was still obvious in 3 additional
images from two satellites. This trail was apparent in both the Reflectance and Cloud Top
Pressure data. I conclude that from the 7th arc, MH370 was flying within the clouds and
punching through it occasionally and leaving a distinct trail along its final descent to its precise
planned landing site. This observation, if correct, is a second direct confirmation of MH370’s
path, added to the previous direct confirmation of a MODIS-satellite-observed debris trail from
the landing site (another deceived algorithm).
Keywords: Contrails; MH370; Cloud Trails; Cloud Anomalies
1. Introduction
Malaysian Airlines MH370, a Boeing 777-200ER went missing on the 8th of March 2014 with
239 people on board (ATSB, 2017). Officially, the aircraft was flying southerly with all
onboard hypoxic, including the pilots. The aircraft then supposedly ran out of fuel and
underwent a gravitationally-accelerated dive resulting in a catastrophic high-speed crash with
flaps and flaperon fluttering wildly and flying off. This unbelievable story has been soundly
falsified as physically impossible (Lyne, 2022a; Lyne, 2022b; Vance, 2018) on all fronts.
Further all analyses purporting to support the 7th-arc-dive theory contained errors of physics,
logic, and in some cases common sense, as I explain in the Appendix to Lyne (2024). Finally,
not one scrap of debris was found in the extended, intensive, and hugely expensive searches
across 120,000 km2. In contrast the catastrophic crash of Swissair Flight 111 disintegrated the
entire aircraft into very small pieces, estimated at over 2 million by Larry Vance, who was the
decorated Chief Air-crash Investigator; see Figure 5 in Larry’s book detailing his excellent
investigation of MH370 debris (Vance, 2018). Continual denial, and relentless official criticism
of the alternate “controlled ditching” theory, has extended the failure to find MH370 now to
nearly ten years, with grieving relatives still waiting.
Since the beginning of 2021, the Penang Longitude Theory exposed a mastermind secret plan
for MH370 to evade detection to a very deep secret hole with substantial (not “a little” as one
official testified to Senators), but just enough, extra fuel taken onboard at departure from Kuala
Lumpur. But the plan for a “no-debris controlled ditching” failed, with the right wing ploughing
through a Southern Ocean wave with a number of large external and some positively
identifiable internal parts being emitted—along with many common cabin personal-items (that
were discarded if found for not being positively attributable) (Lyne, 2023a). Recently I showed
that despite Captain Sully expertly landing US Airways Flight 1549 on the relatively placid
Hudson River, the left engine was sheared off, with flaperon and flaps fractured off from both
sides. The French Captio-group also provided an excellent realistic simulation of flaperon
trailing-edge damage from ditching (Kamoulakos, 2020). Damages to the wings appear to
precisely mimic what happened to MH370 (Lyne, 2024); apart from the fact that the US
Airways impact was not severe enough to breach the fuselage as per MH370 (Vance, 2018).
The evidence is overwhelming that MH370 undertook a “controlled ditching” and further the
exact very precisely planned flightpath has been unravelled from the resolved riddles in the
Pilot-In-Command simulator track (Lyne, 2023b; Lyne, 2023c). We now have a highly
accurate flight path, as shown in Figure 1, as well as the critical point at the 7th arc when MH370
was in a controlled aggressive descent.
Figure 1. Figure adapted from (Lyne, 2023c) comparing the respective northern and southern Pilot-In-Command
(PIC) simulated tracks (left-side purple labels) with the planned tracks (right-side green labels). The PL Hole is
near where the 33oS latitude intersects the longitude of Penang (thin brown vertical line) at a 6000 m deep hole.
The Decoy Tracks (to Southern Ocean and Perth Airport runway) were not executed but merely to cause confusion.
Track lengths are noted in the labelled track boxes. The Jindalee-Over-the-Horizon Radar Network (JORN) range
and southern boundary from Laverton are drawn in purple (note purple JORN curve below the southern boundary
is not valid but merely part of the circle from Laverton as Google Earth Pro does not allow drawing of a part
circle). The Decoy Track to Perth is inferred from the other in the Simulator Track. Note that the map is not in
equi-distance projection.
2. Cloud Investigation
Our original aim here was to investigate evidence from anomalies in the clouds to determine
whether or not MH370 punched through the clouds during its controlled but aggressive descent
at the 7th arc (Lyne, 2022a). The image of clouds at the time is show in Figure 2. Careful
inspection (over many hours!) shows that it contains a trail of cloud-anomalies in approximate
alignment with the flight path from the turn of the JORN corner to the landing location.
Figure 2 A regional NASA Worldview satellite image of clouds (Reflectance) on the 8th March 2014. The satellite
image band to the right (of interest to us) was taken at about 03:07 UTC. The band to the left was taken later at
about 04:44 UTC. Of interest to our study are anomalies of a possible trail (not apparent at this regional scale)
highlighted within the green oval. At the “JORN Turn” MH370 switched from a southerly track to a direct flight
path to the landing location near (33oS, 100oE). The alignment of the flight path and anomaly trail is reasonable
and depends on wind direction at the time which was from south-west to north-east (see:
https://www.ventusky.com/?p=-31.6;84.9;4&l=gust&t=20140307/1500).
Formation of anomalous “holes” in clouds is well known to be related to aircraft, so these
anomalies could potentially be due to MH370. For example, Figure 3 shows an image from
NASA of “holes” and “trails” left by aircraft flying through clouds. Those examples appear to
be thinner upper-level clouds, whereas in our case, the clouds were thick enough to “hide” the
flight of MH370 except on occasions when it punched through the billows in the clouds. The
substantial size of holes and trails are due to a number of factors: First, the physical disturbance
caused by an aircraft flying through cloud at over 800 km/hr; second, cooling of airflow over
the wing (due to pressure drop) may precipitate out moisture; third, exhaust gases ejecting out
at over 2000 km/hr1 and temperatures of 300oC – 800oC2. This exhaust gas comes from air
within the cloud being rammed into the jet engine and exhausted at extremely high velocity,
temperature, and turbulence. The superheated stream of exhaust gases must in some way rise
through the clouds into higher altitude where it will dilute, cool down, and possibly generate
an upper-atmosphere trail above the clouds. For example, look carefully again at Figure 3 and
notice that each of the large disturbances has both dark and light (white) elements. The dark
structure appear to be the holes and tears in the clouds and the lighter structures are within the
core of the dark structures and appear to be “new clouds” associated with the disturbance. In
the case of MH370, the plane is going through the clouds and will therefore be expected to
generate a corresponding trail of “new cloud” of much larger scale than the isolated structures
seen in Figure 3.
1 https://www.jet-x.org/a8.html
2 https://homework.study.com/explanation/how-hot-is-jet-engine-exhaust.html
Figure 3 Illustration from NASA of the formation of trails and “holes” from aircraft flying through clouds3. Image
credit: NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS Rapid Response. Note the various patterns of holes with
somewhat tear-drop shapes, trails, and combinations of holes and trails. Note also the scale of “50 km” (lower left
of image) and compare that scale with the scale of the anomalies. They are big!
A zoomed-in view of the anomalies in Figure 4 shows more clearly, but still indistinct, a series
of holes and discolored patches strung along a linear path. Flip back to Figure 3 to see
similarities and key differences from the thicker clouds here. Note, anomalies are near the
surface to begin with, but later are only apparent within the cloud structure. Also note the
endpoint is within a distinct hole. Hence, anomalies are not on the surface of the cloud but
within the cloud structure. A reasonable interpretation is that MH370 was attempting a
secret flight within the clouds.
Anomalies would be distorted by the 2 hours and 48 minutes (from the 7th arc, and ~26 minutes
less from the PL Hole) of cloud drift. Nonetheless, that track of anomalies is still quite clearly
distinguished from its surroundings.
3 https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/84916/supercool-clouds
Figure 4 Zoomed in view of the trail of anomalies in the cloud show in Figure 2. The anomalies are apparent as a
series of “holes” and discolored (relative to surrounding) patches strung along a trail within the marked oval.
A second satellite source for the anomalies is visible in the Terra/MODIS “Cloud Top Height”
(a measure of the top of the cloud) shown in Figure 5. The anomalies are now much more
distinct from the surroundings and show an apparent mix of the expected height (~4 km) to
many anomalies with values near ~10 km (abnormal). How such anomalies are formed is a
question for others to answer, but as discussed before, superhot gases are being emitted within
the clouds. We note for now that it overlays (closely but not exactly) the anomalies seen in the
finer detailed reflectance cloud image. The nearest distance to the anomaly trail is about 200
km, so this is the least distance possible for the cloud to drift in 2 hours and 48 minutes.
At the time of the image, the sun-elevation angle was 48.2o at and azimuth of 57.6o (clockwise
from North) so any shadows would be 1.34 times the cloud-height difference and oriented
towards the southwest. Assuming a height anomaly between the lower and upper cloud of (10
– 4) = 6 km, potential shadows would be ~8 km. The misalignment between the upper and
lower cloud levels seen in Figure 6 cannot differentiate this scale or the direction which appears
more oriented towards the southeast. This leads us to suggest that the anomalies are actual
disturbances in the structure of the clouds and that perhaps the height-determination algorithm
was affected in some way by the rising exhaust gases.
Figure 5 Very distinct anomalies (within oval) of the Top of Cloud Height from the Terra/MODIS satellite. Darker
blues are high values (~10 km height), whilst the brown-yellow background is between 3.5 to 4 km height.
Approximate landing location is shown by the red location marker.
The geometry and distances of the anomaly trail from the track between the 7th-arc descent and
the landing location are shown in Figure 6. The length of the anomaly trail of about 330 km is
shorter than the track length of about 340 km, hence there is a shortfall which may be due to
the aircraft descending before it reaches the final destination in order to prepare for a level-
flight attempted controlled ditching. The cloud drift displacement till the satellite image, results
in a drift north-east of 260 km (west end) to 280 km (east end).
Figure 6 Orientation and distances of the cloud anomalies (overlay of “Cloud Top Height” and “Reflectance”)
from the assumed descent point at the 7th Arc, and the approximate landing location. Insert shows the winds from
Ventusky at 02:00 on the 8th March 2014. There is slight divergence of winds from west to east as expected from
the slightly greater drift observed from west to east. Due to vertical shear and Earth’s rotation, winds near the
surface (Ventusky winds are at 10 m level) increase and rotate with altitude; the cloud anomalies are nominally at
about 4 km altitude along the track. Note straight distances from Worldview do not accord with those from Google
Earth Pro (earth’s curvature considered), so are mainly used here for reasonable comparative purposes.
Wind velocities at 10 m level (ocean surface winds) were approximately 40 km/hr according
to Ventusky (https://www.ventusky.com/?p=-31.6;84.9;4&l=gust&t=20140307/1500).
Typically, the wind profile follows a power-law relationship:
where u and ur are winds at two different heights, z and zr respectively, and α is approximately
0.1434. With this formulation, we can expect the velocity at 4 km to be 2.4 times that at 10 m
near the ocean surface—about 96 km/hr. This is a reasonable agreement with the observed
value from the average distance of 270 km drifted in 2 hours and 35 minutes (average time
between start and end of track) = 270 / 2.6 ~ 104 km/hr. The end of the cloud anomaly track
is therefore due to the aircraft descending down from within the clouds for the final landing.
Hence secrecy was paramount and maintained till the very end. There are way too many
coincidences for the cloud anomaly trail to not be due to MH370 attempting a secret flight
within the clouds to hide the final location.
3. The Second Trail!
The Terra/MODIS satellite data analysed previously was a Descending Day (Terra) pass that
imaged the trail at about 03:07 UTC. A few hours later at about 07:24 UTC, the Aqua/MODIS
Ascending Day (Aqua) pass also imaged the area. Surprisingly, inspection of that image
(Figure 7) shows an anomalous trail in the clouds as well! The western half contains a long
trail-channel which is more distinct than the earlier image; almost as if the top of the cloud
layer has been peeled off as we expect hot gases would do. However, the eastern half shows
wider and deeper disturbances.
4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_profile_power_law
Figure 7 Cloud anomalies from the Aqua/MODIS Ascending Day (Aqua) Cloud Reflectance pass at
approximately 07:24 UTC. Trail of anomalies (of roughly 304 km total length) are shown in the area within the
brown oval.
Figure 8, shows that the Reflectance anomalies are also accompanied by Cloud Top Pressure
anomalies which also mimic the disturbances seen in the Reflectance data. The overall length
is slightly less than the trail of anomalies seen more than 4 hours earlier.
Figure 8 Second trail of anomalies overlaid with the Cloud Top Pressure (Day) from Aqua/MODIS Ascending
Day (Aqua) pass. The Pressure data indicates that the greater disturbances seen in the Reflectance data to the east
are also reflected in the greater pressure anomalies.
Another supporting data is from the Suomi NPP/VIIRS satellite which passed 5 minutes later
and showed a trail of visible Cirrus Reflectance anomalies aligned with the Cloud Reflectance
data as seen in Figure 9 (note apparent misalignment is due to timing delays of ~5 minutes
between the two images).
Figure 9 Second Reflectance anomaly trail overlaid with Cirrus Reflectance (Visible & NIR) from the Suomi
NPP/VIIRS satellite. Note that Cloud Reflectance data is at 07:24 UTC whilst the Suomi Cirrus data is slightly
later at 07:29 UTC. Hence, the displacement between the features is due primarily to this timing delay and not a
shadow effect which for that time would be towards the south east in any case (303o azimuth).
Distances and timings from the First anomaly trail to the Second indicates that the latter trail
was advected at a slightly lesser drift speed of ~87 km/hr, and in a more easterly direction as
seen in the summary shown in Figure 10.
Figure 10 Cloud reflectance image at 07:24 UTC overlaid with three tracks: 1) red-dotted track is the assumed
path taken by MH370 from 00:19 UTC at the 7th arc to its landing site at the PL Hole estimated at 00:45 UTC; 2)
the first anomaly trail at 03:07 UTC; and, 3) the second anomaly trail at 07:24 UTC.
To summarise, Table 1 shows details of the satellites and data for the 5 images used to show
the drift of MH370 cloud anomalies from the final track between 00:19 – 00:45 UTC to a first
set of anomalies at 03:07 UTC and a second set at 07:29. This represents over 7 hours since
00:45 UTC
MH370 commenced its descent at the 7th arc. The anomaly trails are shorter than the track taken
by MH370 but the trails were obvious especially from the Cloud Top images.
Table 1 Details of the final PIC Track and the two anomaly trails together with the satellite passes.
Track Time
(UTC)
Satellite Data Track Length
(km)
00:19 ~ 00:45
PIC Track 344
03:07 Terra/MODIS
(Descending)
Cloud Reflectance
Cloud Top Height
337
07:24 Aqua/MODIS
(Ascending)
Cloud Reflectance
Cloud Top Pressure
304
07:29 Suomi
(Ascending)
Cirrus Reflectance 304
To summarise, we have demonstrated that there were very clear trails of cloud anomalies in
both the Reflectance and especially the Cloud Top Height/Pressure satellite images, which
aligned and matched. The length of the trails were of the length expected from the steep descent
at the 7th arc to the final landing at the Penang Longitude Hole where the longitude of Penang
intersects the PIC Track (approximately at 33oS), 1500 km west of Perth. The cloud-drift
velocity and direction match what we expect from the classic Power-Law profile. Even some
7 hours later, the internal path within the clouds taken by MH370 was continuing to evolve and
indeed the western half showed a distinct channel as the top of the clouds was presumably
evaporated away by the heated exhaust and induced circulation.
The results suggest that even the final approach to the landing location was done in secret
within the clouds rather than below. A flight below cloud level would allow more time for
surveying the landing location. But it seems the priority was one of secrecy, but without the
realization that this would leave an obvious trail in satellite images that would last a long time.
There is a shortfall between the first anomaly trail length of 330 km and flight path distance of
340 km, which suggests there was ample allowance for an attempted near level-flight
controlled ditching.
As an aside, there is another fainter trail to the north east, barely visible in Figure 5. What that
might be due to is unclear as it involves a faster cloud drift speed and is rotated to the right, all
classic signs of a wind profile affected by vertical shear. These latter observations suggests it
may be due to a higher-altitude path. It may perhaps be associated with hot exhaust gases, but
that interpretation would require both sets of clouds aligned during formation and then
separated out after 2.8 hours. Either that or there is another interpretation, which may have
implications for our analysis. Both sets of anomaly trail images suggest instead that the Cloud
Top anomalies are right above the anomalies visible in the reflectance data. Solar inclination
and azimuth calculations do not support anomalies being due to shadows. We leave resolution
of the fainter second trail as an open question for further discussion and analysis by others. For
now, the anomaly trail matches precise predictions by the Penang Longitude Theory very well,
so we must go with that interpretation as a precautionary measure.
4. Conclusions
MH370’s-controlled descent at the 7th arc was to prepare for a secret flight path to the landing
location, within the clouds, in order to avoid detection. Distinct remnant anomalies in both
reflectance and cloud height/pressure revealed the “secret” flight path very clearly even after 7
hours.
Funding: This research received no external funding.
Acknowledgments: Thank you to Bill Tracy for past discussions about clouds and MH370. A sincere thank you to the un-
known voices for providing the insights. Rest in peace.
Conflicts of Interest: The author declares no conflict of interest.
5. References
ATSB (2017) The Operational Search for MH370, Canberra. Australia.AE-2014-054). Available at:
https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/5773565/operational-search-for-mh370_final_3oct2017.pdf.
Kamoulakos, A. 'Aspects of analysis and simulation of a flaperon ditching scenario', Aiaa Aviation 2020 Forum.
Lyne, V. (2022a) 'Final Communications from MH370 Supports Controlled Eastward Descent Scenario', Journal of
Navigation, (Under Review).
Lyne, V. (2022b) 'Flawed Vertical Dive Conclusion from MH370 Doppler-Shifts', Researchgate, pp. 44.
Lyne, V. (2023a) “Drift” Versus “Sail” of MH370 Flaperon to Réunion Island, Hobart, Australia.
Lyne, V. (2023b) MH370 Flight Hidden in Simulated Triple-Twist Riddle [Technical Report], Hobart. Tasmania.
Australia: Researchgate. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.12350.15685.
Lyne, V. (2023c) MH370 Malacca Track Riddle [Technical Report], Hobart. Tasmania. Australia: Researchgate.
Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.26851.63528/1.
Lyne, V. (2024) Was MH370 Debris Adrift in the Leeuwin Current? , Hobart. Tasmania. Australia: University of
Tasmania. Available at:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/377782958_Was_MH370_Debris_Adrift_in_the_Leeuwin_Current.
Vance, L. (2018) MH370 Mystery Solved. Group of Three Publishing.
