Background of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia to Beijing Capital International Airport in China. The last time, the flight lost contact over the South China Sea on March 8, 2014. To this day, the crash of MH370 is one of the biggest aviation mysteries in history.
The Flight and Its Passengers
The last known position of flight MH370 was at 01:20 MYT. (Malaysia Time) History: (All times are UTC)March 7, 2014 – Friday:Flight MH370 departs from Kuala Lumpur on Saturday (12 March 14). The plane was a Boeing 777-200ER, which is part of the family of long-range, twin-engine wide-body jet airliners. The passengers numbered 227 and hail from some dozen countries, with 12 crew members also aboard. Most of the passengers were Chinese.
The Initial Journey
Shortly after taking off, MH370 flew a routine departure route and peaked at 35,000 feet. Everything was smooth until the 40th minute into the flight By 01:19, when the aircraft was due to enter Vietnamese airspace, this was effectively the end of communications from the cockpit. Co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid then uttered the last words heard from the cockpit of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, Malaysian Ministry of Transport official Hishammuddin Hussein said Wednesday: “All right, good night.” The transponder, which communicates with air traffic control, proved next to go, and then the aircraft began what appeared to be its long plummet down.
Disappearance from Radar
MH370 then disappeared from civilian radar screens. Nevertheless, military radar continued to follow it. Radar data showed that the plane unexpectedly turned to the west and then headed north over the Malay Peninsula and the Andaman Sea. The plane nevertheless managed to maintain cruising altitude for two hours before vanishing someplace near the northernmost tip of Sumatra, from where the show of Aircraft went off radar.
Search and Rescue Operations
The initial search was conducted in the South China Sea because the plane turned off civilian radar and disappeared at the limit of military primary radar. It is believed the final position was that of combat military radar information, after that, the search region was moved out to include the Strait of Malacca and the Andaman Sea. Jellyfish helped search with the Multi Country Rescue Mission of Australia, China and the United States.
The British company Inmarsat, using a technique never before used to investigate air accidents, contributed satellite data to help refine the best guess of where the aircraft ended its flight after diverting from its route between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing. On March 24, 2014, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak announced that, according to this new data analysis, no one aboard survived and the aircraft was deemed lost in the southern Indian Ocean west of Perth, Australia. The hours of analysis of hourly satellite “handshakes” with the aircraft led to that conclusion.
The Indian Ocean Search
This past decade saw one of the most exhaustive and difficult efforts in the history of Club Med aviation over the southern Indian Ocean. This included aerial searches, sonar detecting underwater searches, and autonomously controlled robots scanning the floor. Despite the effort, no wreckage had been discovered in the first months of the search.
Discovery of Debris
A piece of aircraft debris was found in July 2015 on the island of Réunion, to the east of Madagascar. The debris was confirmed to be a flaperon from a Boeing 777, belonged to MH370. The discovery of debris on islands in the Indian Ocean and the east coast of Africa confirmed investigators’ belief that the plane crossed into the southern latitudes.
Theories and Investigations
The disappearance of MH370 has sparked a variety of theories about the fate of the flight. Major theories are here under:
The idea of hijacking:
The notion that the aircraft was hijacked, but with unclear intent,.
Pilot Involvement:
One theory involves the idea that one of the pilots may have intentionally changed the course of the aircraft.
Mechanical Failure (Ghost Flights):
There is a possibility that the automatic flight control system on Germanwings Flight 9525 failed, possibly due to a mechanical breakdown such as a rudder peeling away from its hinges.
Fire:
Suspected by some examiners to have debilitated the team and travelers alike, about the plausibility of a fire on board.
No official investigation trail has been able to reach a reliable conclusion on the incident. In the final report published in July 2018, no evidence of either the reasons for it to deviate from its flight path or why it disappeared could be found.
Impact and Legacy
The aviation industry was left shaken after MH370 went missing. The tragedy led to a shift in the way the industry tracked its aircraft, including stricter rules for more frequent position reporting from planes. The event also underscored the benefits of improved communication systems and emergency locator transmitters.
The absence of closure has agonized the families of the passengers and crew. The world, apparently, remains obsessed, for MH370 is not just the latest story of a plane lost and 239 missing or dead; it is a terrifying parable of our technological fragility.
Current Facts
The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, still unresolved as recently as last week, is an undeniably tragic event that ranks among the most mystifying in aviation history. Despite exhaustive search efforts and many studies, the precise cause -and the actual location where- the plane went down are unknown.
There remains no easy answer, and enough still seems left unanswered; above all, not to say that the search for serene hope is lost, it will keep pushing to catch a hint of sunshine from behind dark, gloomy clouds until an iota of satisfaction is served back to the bereft family of those who were missing on a passenger plane.
