Shipwrecks found in search for missing Flight 370 may be 19th century vessels

LONDON -- Four years after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished over the Indian Ocean, new analyses suggest that two shipwrecks found in the search for the missing plane may date back to the late-1800s.

Maritime historians and experts who have been analyzing data on the shipwrecks found in 2015 believe evidence points to one of the wreckages possibly being the brig W Gordon or the barque Magdala, both of which went missing in the late 19th century.

The W Gordon was traveling from Scotland to Australia when it disappeared in 1877. The Magdala was sailing from Wales to Indonesia before disappearing in 1882.

The other shipwreck found in the Flight 370 search is thought to be the West Ridge, which disappeared on a voyage from England to India in 1883.

The analysis comes from studying data and images taken by underwater drones that have been scouring the Indian Ocean floor looking for remnants of the missing plane.

Flight 370 went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to Beijing March 8, 2014, after air traffic control lost contact with the jet. There were 239 people on board.

The search was one of the largest surface and underwater operations of its kind in aviation history, stretching more than 40,000 square miles, at a cost of more than $200 million. The state search has been called off and a smaller private hunt is in its final days.

Experts from the Western Australian Museum also analyzed sonar in their study of the wreckage data, and concluded that remnants of coal found on the two ships suggests they were British merchant vessels.

“These are the deepest wrecks so far located in the Indian Ocean,” museum curator Ross Anderson said. “They’re some of the most remote shipwrecks in the world.”

The shipwrecks were found more than 1,200 miles off the Western Australia coast, almost 2 1/2 miles deep near the sea floor.