The Disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

Introduction

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (also known as MH370) was an international flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China that went missing on March 8, 2014. Shortly after takeoff, the plane disappeared from radar, and the cause of disappearance is still unknown, making its story the biggest aviation mystery of all time.

FLIGHT PATH

MH370 was a Boeing 777-200ER, and it received an all clear after a safety inspection prior to the flight.

Less than an hour after takeoff from Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 12:42 am local time, it made last contact with Malaysian air traffic control at 1:19 am. During this period, they were supposed to switch to contact Vietnamese air traffic control in Ho Chi Minh City, but the plane never made contact.

At 1:21 am, secondary radars from Malaysia and Vietnam lost all signal from MH370's transponder. A secondary radar sends out a signal to the plane, and it replies with its exact ground position. Reports also indicate that there was no rain or dangerous storms in the area, and the plane's tank was nowhere near empty. Despite air traffic control losing the plane's position, the Malaysian military's primary radars were still able to track its general location.

Around 1:30 am, a nearby plane attempted to contact the plane on an international emergency frequency to relay the Vietnamese air traffic control's message, but they reported that the communications were not properly established. Also around 1:30, the plane began to turn left, starting a new path in a southwestern direction.

From 1:30 to 1:52 am, MH370 continued southwest until reaching the city of Penang, Malaysia, where it turned right onto a northwest track. It continued on this path, crossing the Strait of Malacca and passing by the northern tip of Indonesia's island of Sumatra, before Malaysian military radar lost all detection of the plane at 2:22 am. The location of the plane at that time was close to the edge of Malaysian radar detection capabilities.

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT

At 7:24 am local time, Malaysia Airlines formally stated that the plane had been lost, sparking major reactions from citizens and news outlets all over the world.

A BREAKTHROUGH IN THE MYSTERY

The day of the incident, a breakthrough was made by British telecommunications company Inmarsat. After calculating how much fuel MH370 had and using that to determine its possible positions, one of their geomagnetic satellites sent out ping signals, similar to Doppler radar, throughout the possible area. The signals came back showing that the plane was last located about 1,200 miles west of Perth, Australia-- the plane had flown out to the Indian Ocean before taking a sharp left turn and flying straight down south. Since there were no nearby landing spots, it has been presumed that the plane crashed into the middle of the Indian Ocean.

THE SEARCH

The search for MH370 still stands as the most expensive search in aviation history, lasting over four years and costed about $155 million dollars ($190 million in today's money). Australia, China, Japan, Malaysia, the United States, New Zealand, South Korea, and the United Kingdom all helped in the search, but came up with no conclusive evidence. Private marine-exploration company Ocean Infinity also conducted a thorough search of the area with underwater vessels, but failed to find anything.

Evidence

To this day, the only evidence of MH370's presumed crash are pieces of the plane. From 2015 to 2016, multiple parts washed up on islands in the Indian Ocean and the eastern coast of Africa. First, the plane's flaperon, a part of the wing, was found on Reunion Island in July 2015, and a suspected flap track fairing was discovered in December of the same year on a beach in Mozambique. Citizens continued to stumble across plane parts on beaches the following year, finding a horizontal stabilizer in Mozambique, an engine cowling in South Africa, one main cabin interior panel on Mauritius and another in Madagascar, a wing fragment in Mauritius, and a wing flap on Pemba Island, all across 2016.

CONCLUSION

After all of this evidence and research, we can conclude that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 most likely crashed into the middle of the ocean. However, authorities are yet to locate the plane-- so who knows where it could be?

Credit to Wikipedia for cover image