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Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 that mysteriously disappeared with 239 people on board nearly a year ago was deliberately taken off course by someone in the cockpit and flown towards Antarctica, experts have claimed.

The claim has been made by aviation experts in a new documentary. Experts believe that the plane was likely the target of a deliberate effort to steer it off course toward Antarctica.

Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3 Orion’s captain, Wing Comdr. Rob Shearer watches out of the window of his aircraft while searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean. File photo

The doomed aircraft took three sharp turns in the 90 minutes after air traffic controllers lost contact with pilots, seasoned crash investigators say in the National Geographic documentary titled ‘Malaysian 370: What Happened?, which will be screened on March 8, exactly a year after the Beijing-bound plane disappeared.

The bizarre twists would have spun the flight roughly 180 degrees and “strongly suggests” the new path was no accident, said experts after reviewing satellite information.

“It is conceivable that a pilot could deliberately de- pressurise the airplane that is part of an effort to hijack the airplane or take it for some purpose,” aviation expert Malcolm Brenner said.

The plane with 239 people, including 5 Indians on board, disappeared and multinational search teams have not been able to crack the unprecedented aviation mystery.

The satellite data from the mysteriously downed jet indicates that it flew for hours after losing contact with flight control.

“This accident has caught the attention of the world in a way I have not seen in a forty-year career in aviation,” Brenner was quoted as saying in the documentary by the Mirror.

Australian Transport Safety Bureau Commissioner Martin Dolan is leading attempts to recover the plane.

The disappearance of the MH370 plane was the first of the three aviation tragedies that have rocked the world within one year.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed on July 17 last year after being shot down, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board.

Then in December AirAsia Flight QZ8501 with 162 people aboard went down in stormy weather in the Java sea during what was supposed to be a short trip from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.