By Tim Binnall
There may be a major break in the mystery of missing flight MH370 as an Indonesian fisherman has emerged with claims of having seen the airliner as it crashed. The alleged witness is reportedly named Rusli Khusmin and he shared his story at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur earlier this week. According to the fisherman, he and his crew were working in the waters of the Malacca Strait, which separates Indonesia and Malaysia, on the fateful day in 2014 when MH370 vanished.
Khusmin recalled seeing the airliner "moving from left to right like a broken kite" and he saw black smoke pouring out of the plane, presumably due to some kind of fire on board. He also said that there was no noise emanating from the jet and, intriguingly, remembered that the air was filled with a strong acidic smell in the moments before the burning jet plunged into the water. Perplexed by what he was seeing, Khusmin noted the GPS coordinates of the scene and has since handed them over to investigators.
While the fisherman's tale could be a stunning turn of events in the case that has baffled the world for nearly five years, there are some curious elements to his story that leave one wondering if it is genuine. The most obvious of them all is the question of why he took so long to come forward with his account of witnessing the crash. Unfortunately, Khusmin never gave any explanation for the lengthy delay. Additionally, his solo appearance at the press conference is somewhat troublesome, since he asserted that the whole crew saw the scene, yet he is the only individual to have made this claim so far.
Nonetheless, Khusmin insists that his story is true and even went so far as to swear on the Koran that he is being honest in his account. Considering the relatively small size of the Malacca Strait, especially compared to the vast swaths of ocean that have already been scoured for signs of the lost plane, it stands to reason that a cursory check of the area should be able to determine the veracity of the fisherman's tale. Whether the Malaysian government puts Khusmin's story to the test using his GPS coordinates remains to be seen. If they don't, let's hope that some independent investigator will take the chance and look deeper into the matter to provide an answer one way or the other.