FEATURE

Fugro Equator, the last ship searching for the aircraft at the heart of aviation’s deepest mystery, is sailing back to port. The hunt for MH370, and the 239 people who are presumed to have died on the flight, has been called off.

On 8 March 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared on a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board. Despite a massive international search effort over almost three years, the only traces of the plane that have turned up are fragments of wreckage washed up on the western shores of the Indian Ocean.

A communique from the transport ministers of Malaysia, Australia and China said: “Despite every effort using the best science available, cutting edge technology, as well as modelling and advice from highly skilled professionals who are the best in their field, unfortunately, the search has not been able to locate the aircraft.”

The move confirms a decision six months ago by the three countries to call off the search “in the absence of credible new evidence leading to the identification of a specific location of the aircraft”.

The last contact with the plane took place at 1.19 a.m. on 8 March 2014, when Captain Zaharie Shah acknowledged air- traffic control with the words “Good Night Malaysian three-seven-zero”.

It took the airline a further six hours to tell the world that one of its planes was missing. No distress messages were sent.

An air-sea rescue operation was launched in the South China Sea and the Gulf of Thailand. But a week after the disappearance, the Ma-