In March 2014, passenger flight MH370 disappeared from (literally) the face of the Earth. Having 227 passengers and 12 crew members aboard at time of the disappearance, the aircraft has never been recovered. After a decade of searching, conspiracies, and mourning, there are still no answers to what happened to MH370.
The flight path was from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, and the plane dropped off all satellite trackers just as it was about to enter Vietnam airspace. Shortly after that, Malaysia military radars lost contact with the plane, and it could not be found on any other areas or country’s trackers and/or radars. The plane was last accounted for flying over the Indian Ocean and was never detected again.
When people began to realize that that the plane was surely lost, a search quickly began and started with concentration in the South China Sea, then to the Strait of Malacca and the Andaman Sea. The Oceans were searched from those starting points all the way into the Indian Ocean southwest of Australia, across Turkey, Southeast Asia, western China, and India. After the search had gone on for weeks with no sign of the plane, it was determined and announced that there were not expected to be any survivors if the plane were to be found.
Partial signals from what was assumed to be the plane’s black box system were identified throughout the coming weeks, which led search efforts to all sorts of different locations as they tried to track down the signals. Even with the use of sonar and submarine searches, there was no advancement in the case. No debris, no people, no crash site, and no plane were found. It wasn’t until 2015 that the first piece of debris from the plane was found. The right wing flaperon was washed up on a French beach from the west Indian Ocean. After that, a total of 20 pieces were found that have strong likelihood of being from MH370, while 3 were positively identified as belonging to the plane. From studying the debris, there was no way to tell whether that plane broke apart due to an in-sky explosion or by crashing into the water. There is still no crash site connected to the flight, so the rest of the plane is (and all its passengers) is still unidentified.
There are countless theories as to what happened to MH370, from a simple crash in the ocean, to hijacking, to pilot misconduct. No individual or terrorist group as have claimed responsibility for the missing plane, so people have come to rule out terrorism. Many people think that simple plane malfunction is to blame, and that the disappearance from the radars is just another mishap. A newer and popular theory is due to newer information becoming more readily available about the pilot’s behavior on the plane. To hear more about this theory, check out RedHanded Podcast episode: “Good Night, Malaysia Three Seven Zero.” https://redhandedpodcast.com/episodes/6jnmf8s8feyjxcs-33nkx-wtmjf-b2m8a-rena2
