Departure and Disappearance
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, March 8th, 2014, 12:25 AM. Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 prepares to depart from Kuala Lumpur International Airport en route to Beijing.
On board are 227 passengers and a flight crew of 12.
"Nation 370 passengers. Zero. We are ready for zero to Beijing. 37032."
Flight 370 was a commercial Malaysia Airlines flight—a routine procedure. A routine flight, as we say. The flight path was more or less a straight line from Kuala Lumpur out over the South China Sea to the mainland of China.
As far as everybody was concerned, it took off normally and was flying its route northward toward China.
"Malaysian 370, contact Ho Chi Minh 120 decimal 9/9."
Then, all of a sudden, it turned off its communications and basically went dark.
At about 1:20 AM, as the plane was flying over the South China Sea, ground control lost all contact with the plane. One second, the 240-ton Boeing aircraft was emitting a clear transponder signal to air traffic control. And then, mere moments later - There was nothing.
The fact that the signal disappeared was the unusual element. The transponder, which was chirping back every time it was hit by the radar beam from air traffic control, went silent.
Frantic Attempts to Reconnect
Flight controllers frantically tried to communicate with the airplane. Nothing.
What happened? How can you lose an airplane? How can it vanish into thin air?
Although the aircraft was lost on civilian radar screens, unbeknownst to ground control, military radar was able to track the plane for another hour.
And what it detected was baffling.
At that point, the plane performed a 90° turn to the left, heading southwest, and disappeared into the vastness of the Indian Ocean.
Around 2:20 AM, radar contact with the plane was lost for good. By 7:20 AM, one hour after it was scheduled to land, authorities in Beijing realized that Flight MH370 was not going to reach its destination.
Search and Rescue
A search and rescue operation were immediately launched. It quickly became the most expensive and difficult search in aviation history.
The initial search involved aircraft looking for wreckage or survivors—telltale signs on the sea surface. Unfortunately, after a while, it became clear there were no survivors.
What began as a search and rescue mission turned into a search and recovery mission.
When wreckage did not turn up, officials were forced to admit that all 239 people on board the flight had perished.
"We were clueless as to what could have caused this tragedy right under our noses. In an era when we have the internet, satellites, and radar communication, it just disappears off the radar."
A Key Clue Emerges
Despite the efforts of the world's top aviation experts, the wreckage of the plane seemed to have vanished without a trace.
After months of searching, investigators finally uncovered an important clue.
Boeing had included a maintenance reporting system that communicated by satellite. It was called the ACARS system, designed to report maintenance information about the engines every hour. In this case, it was still pinging away, saying, essentially, "Hey, I’m here. You want any information?"
The data revealed by the ACARS system was shocking. It showed that the plane did not crash anywhere near where it was last detected. It had changed course and kept flying.
The plane flew for another six hours after diverting from its intended flight path, heading toward a very remote area of the southern Indian Ocean.
Theories and Speculations
Based on this data, experts believe the plane most likely crashed somewhere in the southern portion of the Indian Ocean after running out of fuel. The aircraft flew thousands of miles in the wrong direction to a place where there was no possible place to land.
But how could that have happened?
Initially, the media proposed the theory that the pilot in command committed suicide. However, the accident report stated that the pilot had no history of emotional or physical problems. Family, friends, and coworkers reported no abnormal behavior before the flight.
Other theories suggested mechanical failure. For example, if the plane caught fire, it could have rapidly depressurized, causing suffocation. In this scenario, the plane would have become a "ghost airplane," flying aimlessly until it ran out of fuel.
Another theory pointed to oxygen malfunction, incapacitating the pilots. However, experts noted that the aircraft appeared to have been flown manually for at least 30 minutes to an hour after its sharp turn.
Hijacking Hypothesis
Some believe the plane was hijacked. The abrupt maneuvers, changes in altitude, airspeed, and heading suggest deliberate manipulation. But this raises more questions:
Why hijack the aircraft? What was the motive? Why fly to the southern Indian Ocean?
Authorities thoroughly checked the backgrounds of all passengers and crew, but none fit the profile of a hijacker.
Wreckage Found
While theories abound, there is little evidence to confirm any of them. The cockpit voice recorder remains at the bottom of the Indian Ocean.
Yet, investigators found proof the aircraft went into the Indian Ocean. A piece of the wing washed up on the shores of Madagascar, definitively identified as part of MH370.
This piece, along with 26 others, was eventually recovered. Out of the 27, only three were positively identified as coming from the aircraft. These fragments took about a year and a half to drift thousands of miles across the Indian Ocean.
The wreckage wasn’t found. The occupants weren’t found. Yet, this case remains the biggest mystery in aviation history.
Source: HISTORY. (2024, April 26). The UnXplained: What REALLY happened to Malaysia Airlines flight 370? (Special) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLH8sLWvdBQ