A man travelling on a stolen passport on the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 was a young Iranian who has no links to terrorists.
A man travelling on a stolen passport on the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 was a young Iranian who has no links to terrorists. Reuters

Australian air-accident probers believe that the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 ran out of fuel and crashed into a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean.

On the basis of the final ping transmission, the investigators estimate the crash site around 25 nautical miles of the final ping, although a previous underwater search as well as an air-and-sea hunt for any kind of jet debris failed to yield any trace of the plane.

The theory is based on the investigators' analysis of the final ping transmission and Inmarsat data released recently, although many relatives of the 239 passengers and crew of the ill-fated flight refuse to believe that theory and think the Malaysia government is hiding the truth from them.

Among the methods the Australian Transport Safety Bureau used to reach that conclusion are calculations on the length of time it took the aircraft to go down and a five-nautical mile margin for error, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Almost three months since the jet disappeared without a trace, authorities will open up the search for the Boeing 777 plane to private contractors next week via public bidding.

Read also: Malaysian Airlines Flight 370: Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim Accuses Gov't of Deleting Dangerous Cargo from Manifest of Missing Jet

Meanwhile, because of lack of conclusive proof, the theory that terrorism played a role in the disappearance of the plane refuses to die. As a result, a new survey by Unisys found that 75 per cent of Australians are now willing to provide biometric data to help airlines verify the identity of the passport holder.

In the case of MH 370, two Iranian passengers were able to board the ill-fated jet using stolen European passports not checked against the Interpol database, although there is no proof that the two holders of the stolen passports had anything to do with the disappearance of the jet.