Mystery of the missing Malaysian airliner still baffles investigators
MARCH 8, 2014
It remains one of the most enduring and fascinating mysteries in aviation history.
Tomorrow marks seven years since Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared virtually without trace. The aircraft, with 239 people on board, vanished 38 minutes after taking off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, destined never to reach its final stop in Beijing.
At 1.01am, MH370 reached its cruising altitude of 35,000ft as it flew north over the South China Sea. At 1.19am, as it left Malaysian airspace and crossed into Vietnam’s, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, the captain, radioed the last words heard from the flight: “Good night. Malaysian Three Seven Zero.”
Normal procedure dictated that the aircraft should then declare its presence to Vietnamese air traffic control but no call came. A minute later the plane’s transponder – its link to the ground – cut off.
Almost immediately its Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), which transmitted technical information about flights, also ceased working. Then MH370 simply vanished.
It issued no distress call, had displayed no sign of trouble. On a clear night, in good flying conditions, one of the world’s safest aircraft, operated by an airline with an excellent safety record, disappeared in a region full of civilian and military radar stations and heavily monitored by satellites.
Today, the whereabouts of Flight MH370 remains unknown.
The Boeing 777 was lost from air traffic control radar screens, but tracked by military radar for another hour, deviating westwards from its planned flight path, crossing the Malay Peninsula and the Andaman Sea.
It left radar range 200 nautical miles north-west of Penang Island in north-western Peninsular Malaysia.
Investigators were able to track pings with a satellite to a suspected crash site in the Indian Ocean but the wreckage was never found.
The search for the plane became the most costly in the history of aviation and one of the most complex.
Despite continuing for three years, searches turned up no sign of the airliner.
Several pieces of marine debris found along the coast of Africa and on Indian Ocean islands – the first discovered in July, 2015 – have all been confirmed as pieces of Flight 370.
However, the bulk of the aircraft has not been located, prompting fevered debate about its disappearance.
Conspiracy theories include a hypoxia event, fire, shoot-down, or hijacking, but none has achieved any consensus among investigators.
There have been several sightings of an aircraft fitting the description of the missing Boeing 777.
CNN reported that witnesses including fishermen, an oil rig worker and people on the Kuda Huvadhoo atoll in the Maldives saw the airliner. The Daily Telegraph reported that a British woman who had been sailing in the Indian Ocean claimed to have seen an aircraft on fire.
The disappearance was the beginning of a disastrous year for Malaysia Airlines. Just four months later another of its aircraft, Flight 17, was shot down over Ukraine. All 283 passengers and 15 crew were killed.
The company was nationalized in September, 2014 by the Malaysian government following severe financial difficulties.