OPINION MH370 still a mystery

ON MARCH 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared on a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 227 passengers and 12 crew. MH370 has since flown into the terrain of folklore and has become one of aviation’s greatest mysteries.

The final search effort, focusing on the seabed in the Indian Ocean, ended this week after more than three months.

This spells the conclusion of the massive, four-year quest to find the plane – unless “credible evidence” which identifies a specific location of the missing aircraft emerges.

Armchair sleuths, aviation experts, authors and conspiracy theorists have had a field day about the aircraft’s fate since it vanished from the sky.

What is known for sure is that a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777, flight number MH370, departed from Kuala Lumpur airport at 12.41am local time on Saturday, March 8. There were 227 passengers and 12 crew on board.

It flew-north-east towards its intended destination, Beijing, China – 4 346km away.

But before it reached the east coast of Malaysia, the ACARS data-transmission system was disabled.

Shortly afterwards the transponder, which provides identification data to ground radar and also handles the aircraft’s “hijack alarm”, was switched off.

The last voice communication was when Malaysian air-traffic controllers handed over the flight to their Vietnamese counterparts. All normal channels of contact had ended by 2.40am.

However, it has now emerged that flight MH370 was deliberately diverted – and the jet was still flying seven-and-a-half hours after take-off.

The search zone shifted multiple times as investigators refined their analysis, all to no avail.

The biggest break in the search came in July 2015, when a wing flap from the aircraft was found on Reunion Island, east of Madagascar. Since then, more than 20 objects either confirmed or believed to be from the plane have washed ashore on beaches throughout the Indian Ocean – including on the coastlines of Mozambique, Mauritius and South Africa.

Among the bizarre theories about MH370’s fate is that it was abducted by aliens; was shot down by American fighter jets who feared that it had been hijacked and was about to be used to attack the US military base on the Indian Ocean atoll of Diego Garcia; it vanished over a second Bermuda Triangle somewhere in the Indian Ocean; or that its on-board computer was hacked, reprogrammed and the jet flown to a secret location.

Will the world ever know of MH370’s fate?

READER COMPLAINTS