A woman places a home-made sign of support and hope for passengers of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport yesterday. Photo: Damir Sagolj/Reuters

The disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 last Saturday was likely to have been the result of a sudden explosion, according to local aviation experts.

The mysterious aerial vanishing still dominates international headlines after a four-day search across the South China Sea has, so far, come up dry.

Aviation engineer John Baptist Camilleri said the sudden disappearance was best explained by a powerful, sudden and uncontrollable explosion.

“The way these aircraft operate, there are safety alerts for any kind of technical fault and most problems are manageable.

“There was no signal sent out so this was something fast and uncontrollable. Most probably a powerful explosion of some kind,” he said.

The plane carrying 239 people on its scheduled flight from Kuala Lampur to Beijing went off radar roughly one hour after takeoff. The blasts causing the disappearance, Mr Camilleri said, could vary from a large scale technical fault to some form of foul play.

“It is hard to establish what kind of explosion this could have been without seeing the plane and the damage caused to it. But it could have been a bomb,” he said.

Terrorism has not yet been ruled out as a cause of the disappearance, despite no groups having come forward to claim responsibility for the events.

Rumours of interference were first sparked after it emerged that two men travelling under false passports were unidentified Iranians. These were later identified as refugees with no apparent links to any terror organisations.

Mr Camilleri said the least likely cause, on the other hand, would have been a problem with the plane’s safety mechanisms.

Having worked in maintenance for the Malaysian airline several years ago, Mr Camilleri said he noted the exceptional upkeep on all of the planes’ warning systems.

“This was some 12 years ago but what I can tell you is that back then all their planes were very well taken care of,” he said.

Former Air Malta chief pilot Joe Farrugia shared Mr Camilleri’s views. He said that the pilot would normally communicate any technical problem to air traffic authorities.

The lack of such communication, he said, implied the disappearance was caused by a sudden internal explosion.

“As far as we know, any major problem is survivable. If not, then the pilot should have enough time to take emergency action.

“But, if there is not time, then no action can be taken and no signals sent out,” he said, adding that this theory was further compounded by the lack of a distress signal.

It’s hard to say what, but it could have been a bomb

However, Interpol has said the police organisation was inclined to conclude the disappearance was “not a terrorist incident”.

Cpt. Farrugia said among the possible causes was a collision.

This had been known to cause the immediate disappearance of aircraft such as the Aerolinee Itavia flight 870 some 30 years ago.

The flight, known as the Ustica Massacre, saw a passenger jet vanish from radar. It was later concluded that the flight was likely to have been brought down by a collision with some form of unidentified airborne object.

“A collision is a very likely cause. Today for instance there is the very real danger of drones and other unmanned aircraft. These can interfere with flight paths if something goes wrong,” he said.