A loud, low frequency noise that thumped across the Indian Ocean ‘could’ have been the sound of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 hitting the water or another noise from a crash – but researchers investigating the phenomenon admit it’s only a slim chance.

Alec Duncan from Marine Science and Technology team at Perth’s Curtin University's Centre says the noise from off of Rottnest Island on 8 March could have come from a natural event, such as a small earthquake.  But there is a slim chance – less than 20 percent – that it’s linked to MH370. 

The problem with that is the sound appears to have come from well outside the area that searchers thought it had ended.  If the analysis of satellite and radar data that led the multinational search effort to the areas west of Perth is correct, then the ‘thump’ is not MH370.  But the searchers have so far come up empty handed.

“I’d love to be able to sit here and say, ‘Yeah, we’ve found this thing and it's from the plane’,” said Duncan, “But the reality is, there’s a lot of things that make noise in the ocean.”