EERIE footage of an abandoned passenger plane once thought to be MH370 has resurfaced, raising questions about the rusted relic’s past.
The formidable Lockheed Martin L1011 Tristar plane was sunk to the bottom of the Red Sea in 2019 and now serves as a home for sealife.
Video shows the abandoned plane at the bottom of the Red SeaInstagram / @brett_hoelzer
Some of the head rests on the rusty passenger seats are still intactInstagram / @deepbluedivecenter
The plane reportedly still has its three engines, cockpit, toilets, and galleys intactInstagram / @deepbluedivecenter
Instagram / @brett_hoelzerFish slowly swim through the plane[/caption]
Video captured by a diver showed a browning plane sitting on the floor of the sea as fish floated between its seats and through its broken windows.
Underwater photographer and avid diver Brett Hoelzer drifted through the wreckage himself, showing overhead lockers and corroded passenger seats, some with their head rests still intact.
The large 400-seater plane was sunk after it was parked – and left abandoned for years – at King Hussein International Airport in Jordan.
It was first registered in the 1980s and serviced airlines including Royal Jordanian, Portugal’s TAP Air, Sweden’s Novair, and Portugal‘s Luzair, according to Planespotters.net.
Years of idleness through the early 2000s left many questioning if there were perhaps better uses for the plane.
Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority eventually purchased the aircraft and sank it into Jordan’s Gulf of Aqaba.
The move was intended to promote dive tourism and coral growth – which it appears to have achieved over the past five years.
Many divers have sought out the wreckage – some 15 to 28 metres deep – to explore both the aquatic airliner and its artificial reef.
Octopuses are said to feed near the coral heads, many of which are sheltered by the plane’s wings.
All three of the plane’s engines are still mounted to the plane’s wings and tail fin, and its cockpit, toilets, and galleys are still in tact, according to a 2022 report by magazine Scuba Diving.
But the plane’s middle seats were ripped from the aircraft to allow divers greater freedom to explore within it.
Diver Brett Hoelzer previously told CNN Arabic: “The cockpit is the shallowest part of the wreck and faces the beach at about 13 metres.
“Scuba divers can go to the back to the last two exit doors, which are at a depth of 28 metres.
“Or they can exit from the middle doors, which are at a depth of about 20 metres.”
The plane is one of the most visited dive sites in Aqaba, Jordan, according to local diving company Deep Blue Dive Centre.
Last year, a now-deleted social media post portraying Tristar went viral amid speculation it was the wreckage of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370).
The caption of the post read: “Malaysia Airplane MH370 that disappeared 9 year ago has been found under ocean with no human skeleton. The plane had 239 passengers on board,” USA Today reports.
Speculation about the plane being MH370 was quickly shut down, as the photograph was matched to a video earlier shared by Deep Blue Dive Centre and captioned: “Tristar Airplane Wreck. Red Sea, Aqaba.”
Mr Hoelzer, who worked with Deep Blue Dive Centre as a photographer and a diver master, confirmed to the Associated Press that the image circulating was indeed the Tristar.
Flight MH370 vanished on March 8, 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing – with 239 passengers on board.
Its whereabouts remain a mystery.
A Boeing 777 pilot exclusively told The Sun last month of how he believed certain flight documents revealed clues to its disappearance.
The bombshell docs revealed that extra fuel and oxygen were added to the doomed jet before it “headed to oblivion” – which Brit pilot Simon Hardy said could prove the disappearance was premeditated.
Instagram / @deepbluedivecenterVideo of the plane went viral last year as people thought it might be missing MH370[/caption]
Instagram / @brett_hoelzerRusty overhead lockers have become refuges for sealife[/caption]
AlamyPlane Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 disappeared on flight MH370 in March 2014[/caption]
National GeographicA computer re-enactment shows what MH370’s final moments could have looked like as it plunged into the Southern Indian Ocean[/caption]
ReutersMadam Wong holds a picture of her son Tan Chong Ling who was aboard missing flight MH370[/caption]
ReutersFrench police inspect a large piece of plane debris found on a beach to determine whether it came from MH370[/caption]
The MH370 plane’s technical log shows that extra oxygen was added to the cockpit at the last minute