10 years after Flight MH370 disappeared, investigators have 'many theories but little evidence'

Ten years on from when Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished from the sky, the search for the truth about what happened to it con‐ tinues to plague the loved ones of those on board.

"While we, the families, may have reached a settle‐ ment with our emotions, our search for answers hasn't en‐ ded," K S Narendran, who lost his wife, Chandrika, on the flight, said at a memorial event in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, last Sunday.

The disappearance of a modern commercial plane and the 239 passengers and crew on board - has baffled experts, sparked wild con‐ spiracy theories and trig‐ gered one of the largest searches in aviation history.

Here's what we do know: In the early hours of March 8, 2014, a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 took off into the night sky from Kuala Lumpur International Airport. It ini‐ tially followed its planned route toward Beijing.

After being instructed to contact Vietnamese air traffic control at 1:19 a.m. local time, the last communication from the flight deck was "Good night, Malaysian 370."

Minutes later, the plane's communication transponder switched off, and the jet van‐ ished from the radar. What happened next has added to the intrigue around this avia‐ tion mystery.

"The plane turned very hard to the left and went back over Malaysia, under Penang up the Malacca Strait into the Andaman Sea. That was tracked by military radar," said Geoffrey Thomas, editor-in-chief of Airlineratings.com, a website that ranks airline safety records.

'They dragged their feet,' relative says of in‐ vestigation

Further data on the plane's route came from satellite communications with MH370, indicating that the jet had eventually gone down in the Indian Ocean off the west of Australia.

Only small pieces of de‐ bris have been found to date.

"More pieces do turn up, but that's more to do with the fact that they've arrived on very remote beaches, and it takes time for people to stumble onto them," said Thomas.

Three official investiga‐ tions have failed to find clear answers.

"I have often felt that the authorities wanted the MH370 matter to go away," Narendran, who lives in In‐ dia, told CBC News.

"I got the impression that they dragged their feet. It perhaps was an embarrass‐ ment, a reminder of their limited competence, a heavy burden of international ex‐ pectation."

The last official investiga‐ tion was closed in 2018, with a near-500 page report re‐ leased by Malaysian investi‐ gators.

It found that the plane di‐ verted from its planned route while the aircraft was under manual control, not autopi‐ lot.

It also pointed to failings in the response from air traf‐ fic control but ultimately con‐ cluded that "a lack of evi‐ dence" meant that investiga‐ tors were unable to deter‐ mine the cause of the disap‐ pearance.

"The report failed to an‐ swer the core questions sur‐ rounding the plane's disap‐ pearance: What or who led to the plane's disappearance? Where did the plane land or crash?" said Narendran.

WATCH | Retired Canadi‐ an investigator Larry Vance's theory of what happened to Flight MH370:

No new evidence about pilot, first officer

Late last year, a Beijing court began compensation hear‐ ings for some of the relatives of the Chinese passengers on board MH370.

They were seeking dam‐ ages from Malaysia Airlines, Boeing and engine maker Rolls-Royce among others, with some of the relatives al‐ so calling for the search to resume.

Meanwhile, the void cre‐ ated by the lack of answers continues to be filled with theories and speculation.

Many fingers have been pointed at the plane's Malaysian pilots: Captain Za‐ harie Ahmad Shah and First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid.

"All of the evidence points to the captain," said Thomas. "It has to be human input. The plane can't do all of these things."

One theory speculated that everyone on the plane was overcome by hypoxia be‐ cause of sudden depressur‐ ization, but Thomas is skepti‐ cal and says if that were the case, the plane would have simply followed its flight path.

"It was programmed to fly to Beijing, and it would have gone beyond Beijing and to Siberia," he said.

In 2017, Australian au‐ thorities said Shah had flown a route on his home flight simulator that was "initially similar" to the route that MH370 is believed to have taken when it went off course, but that detail didn't lead anywhere.

Malaysian investigators found "no evidence of anxi‐ ety or stress" in radio com‐ munications from the flight deck and no sign that Shah or Hamid had been under fi‐ nancial stress or exhibiting behavioural changes in the days and weeks leading up to the flight.

New potential search area

Speculation of a terrorist at‐ tack by a passenger or a stowaway has also surfaced.

"Given the complex flight path taken by the aircraft, it was very likely a deliberate act by an individual, but for what reasons? We have many theories but little evidence," Joe Hattley, the Australian ac‐ credited representative to

Malaysia's investigation into MH370's disappearance, told CBC News.

In the absence of any on‐ going official investigation, independent groups and in‐ dividuals have stepped in and are conducting their own research.

One of them is British aerospace engineer Richard Godfrey, who has used sig‐ nals from amateur radio technology to detect the route that MH370 may have taken.

"The disturbance of those signals is what gives a foot‐ print of where the aircraft has gone," said Thomas of Godfrey's work.

Godfrey has pinpointed a new potential search area, just over 1,500 km west of Perth, Australia.

"It's an area with a radius of about 30 square miles, so it's very small, a very small pinprick," Thomas said.

The location is yet to be searched.

Barnacles in debris may hold clues

Analysis of the various pieces of the plane that have washed up over the years might also offer clues, said Hattley.

"Professor Greg Herbert from the University of South Florida is working on further analysis of the barnacles that were attached to some of the floating debris that was found in the Western Indian Ocean," he said.

By studying the formation of the barnacle shells, re‐ searchers hope to be able to work out the temperature of the water where the debris came from. It's then hoped that a trail can be formed back to the main wreckage.

"This is an important step to help narrow down the pos‐ sible location of the aircraft," Hattley said.

Malaysia's prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, has signalled a willingness to renew the search if compelling evidence emerges.

Marine robotics company Ocean Infinity has also sub‐ mitted a proposal to the Malaysian government to start searching again after its last attempt, in 2018, was un‐ successful.

"My sense is at the end of this year, I think there's going to be a scramble to see who can find it," he said.

WATCH | Calgary com‐ pany explores new way of analyzing black boxes: