My theory of the disappearing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on 8 March 2014
By Steve Ramsey, PhD.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared on 8 March 2014
After departing from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing, with 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board. Malaysia’s former Prime Minister, Najib Razak, stated that the aircraft’s flight ended somewhere in the Indian Ocean, but no further explanation had been given.
Two Iranian men boarded the plane with stolen passports, but after an investigation into the men, Islamic terrorism was ruled out, and they are now believed to have been asylum seekers.
Passengers and crew
Flight 370 left Kuala Lumpur at 12:41 a.m. local time carrying 227 passengers and 12 crewmembers. People from 14 nations were on board; most of the passengers — 153 — were Chinese citizens; all of the crewmembers were Malaysian. Three Americans were on the flight. Other passengers were from Australia (6), Canada (2), France (4), Hong Kong (1), India (5), Indonesia (7), Iran (2), the Netherlands (1), Russia (1), Taiwan (1) and Ukraine (2).
The manifest released by Malaysia Airlines included an Austrian and an Italian.
Some of that passenger is highly skilled technologist with microchip technology experts, IT and engineers, and many with top skills. But the key point in my mind after studying all the fact for months and months is that the explosion started from inside the plane and not from the outside, it is not the Chinese or the Americans who shot the plan down.
It was reported by the Malaysian government that the aircraft was in fact carrying a large consignment of new designed batteries, and lithium- ion batteries in the cargo bay, which had not been disclosed on the manifest. Because if it was disclosed the pilot and the airport will refuse it and do not allow it to enter th cargo. It is the fault of the Malaysians airport to investigate each cargo before the flight leaves. It is the fault of the cargo company who stored and deliver it to the airport, it the fault of the transport cars and trucks who carried it to the airport, it is the fault of the buyer and seller of this cargo, all those companies and people should be sued and arrested. Including the chine’s buyers as the cargo was going to China.
As per Malaysia Airlines (MAS) former CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya revealed there were 200kg of lithium batteries on board at a press conference on March 20, 2014.So if some of them get damaged and starting to `gas` and send fumes into the cockpit which is just above the cargo bay, was not considered though I suggested it. Once `gassing` these batteries can explode and burst into flames `just look on you/tube, the cargo was quite a large one so the result would be enormous like a huge bomb. It will be like a huge firework shows and that’s what some people saw and witnessed on the sky, but no one listened to them.
So how it’s happened, those batteries supposed to be very safe so in my mind I think and external factor plays here and someone, some agency, spy agency, terrorists organization , someone who do not want those highly skilled personnel on board of this plane to go back to China, and they do not want those highly skilled technologist, semiconductor expert, a PhD graduated from the UK and skilled engineers, to reach China.
So, a devise must be implanted in this Cargo to ignite this cargo or creates a small spark and fire enough to blow up the plane. And that can take about 75 to 95 minutes to blow up with the load of 200 kg of this kind of battery, and as we know the plan disperse 94 minutes after the flight.
The key here is to follow the cargo originality who sale it. Where has it come from? Who deliver it? Who is the buyer? Why was it not declared?
Now where are the bodies? Most likely they are burned so severely and in the bottom of the South China Sea, most are gone and eaten by the wildlife in the sea. And if the plane tried to turn west as some said, may be the pilot knew that there is something wrong with the cargo and small fire started and he was trying to find a place to land and then it was too late, and the cargo blow up in the Indian ocean.
That’s what I think what had happened. I think that the Malaysian government and the Army was covering up the facts for those who paid them to be silent and hide the facts, implants debris in different part of the oceans to distract the media and the people, and those agencies, might paid generously for the big cover-up, and cleaned the areas and any other debris.
The Aviation Safety Network lists three accidents (not including Flight 370) involving MAS aircraft:
Sept. 2, 1992: Both tires collapsed, as well as the left main gear, causing a Fokker 50 to veer off the runway at Sibu Airport in Malaysia. No one was hurt.
Sept. 15, 1995: A Fokker 50 landed 500 meters from the end of a 2,220-meter runway in Kota Kinabalu. The pilot attempted to take off and try again but crashed into some nearby houses. A total of 34 people on board were killed.
March 15, 2000: Baggage handlers unloading 80 canisters from an Airbus A330 were overcome by strong toxic fumes. Fire and rescue personnel discovered that the canisters contained oxalyl chloride, a toxic and corrosive chemical. Several canisters had leaked, causing severe damage to the aircraft’s fuselage. The aircraft was considered damaged beyond repair. A Chinese company was fined $65 million for mislabeling the canisters and destroying the aircraft.
There are many other theories.
The author of a book on the missing flight MH370 claims the plane was shot down by the US Air Force in a doomed bid to seize electronic equipment bound for China.
The Boeing 777 vanished in 2014 with the loss of all 239 passengers on board. Its disappearance has become one of the greatest mysteries in modern aviation and has sparked dozens of conspiracy theories. Ads by
Florence de Changy, who has been investigating and reporting on the MH370 for many years, argues that the American military used signal jamming technology to wipe the plane from radar screens – before shooting it down after a failed attempt to re-direct it.
She argues the US sought to seize sensitive electronic gear on its way to Beijing.
De Changy makes the case in her new 400-page book ‘The Disappearing Act: The Impossible Case of MH370’.
According to de Changy’s hypothesis, the US was trying to keep hold of 2.5 tonnes of its “poorly documented Motorola electronics equipment” that had not been through the correct security screening.
She writes: “The shooting down could have been a blunder, but it could have also been a last resort to stop the plane and its special cargo from falling into Chinese hands.”
She writes: “I have established that MH370 did not U-turn, did not fly over Malaysia and, to cut a long story short, never crashed in the Southern Indian Ocean. Many more clues point to a covert interception attempt that went terribly wrong, with a fatal accident happening at 2:40 a.m. between Vietnam and China.”
6 months after that another Malaysian air shot down by Russian who blamed Ukraine. Malaysia Airlines flight 17, also called Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, flight of a passenger airliner that crashed and burned in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. All 298 people on board, most of whom were citizens of the Netherlands, died in the crash.
A Dutch inquiry determined that the aircraft was shot down by a Russian-made surface-to-air missile. For Malaysia Airlines it was the second disaster of 2014, following the disappearance of flight 370 on March 8.in my mind that was a Russian revenge as they thought that the first plane was shot by the US.
The missing Malaysia Airlines plane, flight MH370, had 239 people on board and was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on 8 March 2014 when air traffic control staff lost contact with it.
The search for the plane eventually focused on a 120,000 sq km area of seabed about 2,000km off the coast of Perth in the southern Indian Ocean. It has now been suspended with no trace of the aircraft found there and is likely to remain the world’s greatest aviation mystery.
Seeking a new life in Europe
Suspicions of a terror link to the disappearance of the aircraft were rejected by Malaysian authorities once the true identities of the men carrying the stolen passports of Italian Luigi Maraldi and Austrian Christian Kozel became known.
They were both young Iranian men seeking a new life in Europe far from home.
Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad, 18, was hoping to join his mother in Germany. He chose a long and circuitous route from Iran to Kuala Lumpur, to transit through Beijing and onwards to Amsterdam and then Frankfurt.
“His mother was waiting for him,” officials said, confirming she had been in touch with the authorities.
Hundreds of comments have been left on his Face book page. He had posted a status update of “feeling excited” upon his arrival at Kuala Lumpur from the city of Karaj in Iran two weeks before.
Interpol identified the other man as Delavar Seyed Mohammadreza, 29, but less is known about his origins.
A young Iranian in Kuala Lumpur, Mohammad, told the BBC that both men had stayed with him before taking the Malaysia Airlines flight, and that they had hoped to settle in Europe.
“They were nervous,” Mohammad told the BBC’s Jonathan Head. They checked in separately. But he insists they were not terrorists.
“They were young like me,” he said. “Pouria was quiet, nice, he was never naughty. So was his friend. I heard them talking – they wanted to go to Europe to seek asylum.”
He said that Pouria’s mother had been calling from Hamburg ever since MH370 vanished, asking how her son was during his brief stay in Malaysia.
Prominent engineer in a new job
IMAGE SOURCE, FROM YUCHEN LI’S FAMILY
Dr Yuchen Li, left, was on the flight, but his wife was not
Dr Yuchen Li recently finished his doctoral engineering degree from Cambridge University.
The university confirmed that he had recently begun working in a prominent “geotechnical position” in Beijing.
“Yuchen was a hugely talented and likeable person with a brilliant career ahead of him,” a spokesman at Cambridge said.
Dr Li had only recently married, but his wife, Mingei Ma, was not on the flight with him, Cambridge News says.
A Face book page from Churchill College congratulated the couple on their recent marriage in Hubei, China, adding: “We think they look fabulous!”
Dr Li previously studied civil engineering at Tsinghua University in Beijing, reports say.
A generation of distinguished calligraphers
A feted group of 24 Chinese artists and five staff accompanying them were returning home after attending a cultural exhibition in Kuala Lumpur. They came from all over China: Jiangsu, Sichuan and also Xinjiang province.
Among them was the oldest person on board, 79-year-old Lou Boating, whose calligraphy has been included in dictionaries by many cultural institutions in China, Britain and the US, state media say.
He was on the plane with Zhao, Zhao Fang, a 73-year-old calligrapher and retired professor who had collected a litany of titles for her work.
The wife of Memetjan Abra, a Uighur painter on board, told Xinhua news agency that she was able to speak to him briefly before his flight.
“He is a good painter, husband and father,” she said.
Returning home to their sons
Muktesh Mukherjee, 42, an Indian-born Canadian employed by US firm XCoal, met his wife, Bai Xiaomo, while on business trip in China in 2002, reports in Canada say.
They lived in Montreal before moving to Beijing.
The couples were heading home to Beijing after a beach getaway in Vietnam. Bai Xiaomo, 37, had posted pictures of their holiday shortly before boarding their flight.
The couple’s two young sons were waiting for them at home.
Mr Mukherjee’s grandfather, a former Indian government minister, died in a plane crash outside New Delhi in the 1970s.
His family was praying the couple had not suffered the same fate: “Miracles do happen. We pray it will happen this time and Muktesh will come back to us,” his uncle, Manoj Mukherjee, in India told AFP news agency.
On a delayed honeymoon
Razahan Zamani, bottom right, and his wife Norli Akmar Hamid, were on their delayed honeymoon.
Norli Akmar Hamid, 33, and her husband Razahan Zamani, 24, from Malaysia met while working at a supermarket chain in Kuala Lumpur, local reports say.
They decided to get married in 2012 and were on a long-delayed honeymoon trip to Beijing.
A relative told Malaysian state news agency Bernama that the couple planned the holiday after Ms Norli suffered a miscarriage.
Before the trip, Ms. Norli posted a picture on social media of one of her cats sitting on her suitcase.
The Wall Street Journal quoted friends as saying that this was the couple’s first time on a plane.
On the way to new jobs
American Philip Wood, an IBM employee, was also on the Malaysia Airlines flight
IBM executive Philip Wood, 50, originally from Texas, was one of three Americans on the plane.
Mr Wood – an avid traveler – had just been transferred to Malaysia and was excited about the new beginning, his younger brother James told the Wall Street Journal.
It was his last planned trip to Beijing before settling in Kuala Lumpur. He has two sons from a previous marriage who are based in Texas, reports say.
“We are all sticking together,” his father, Aubrey Wood, told the New York Times. “What can you do? What can you say?”
Another passenger on the way to a new job was mechanical engineer Paul Weeks from New Zealand.
The former soldier moved his family to Perth, Australia, after the devastating earthquakes in Christchurch, reports say.
Before he left home, he took off his wedding ring and watch and gave them to his wife for his two young sons.
A vigil for the missing passengers has been held in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur
“If something should happen to me then the wedding ring should go to the first son that gets married and the watch to the second,” his wife Danica Weeks was quoted by media as saying.
Malaysian Mohd Sofuan Ibrahim was reportedly heading to Beijing to report for duty at Malaysia’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry branch office there.
His father, Ibrahim Abdul Razak, told Malaysia’s state news agency Bernama that the 33-year-old had never disappointed him. Mr Sofuan was to have held his post in Beijing for six months, Bernama adds.
A veteran martial arts expert and stunt double for actor Jet Li was also on board flight MH370.
According to reports, 35-year-old Ju Kun – who had worked on films such as The Forbidden Kingdom – was in Malaysia choreographing a production.
He was on the plane with Chinese national Ding Lijun, who had moved to Malaysia about a year ago to work on construction sites, and was making his first trip home to Beijing since then, a relative told US media.
Nine of those on the plane were old friends, pensioners who made a journey to Nepal, and were on their way back home.
Australian couples Mary and Rodney Burrows are also among the missing. Their son, Jayden, said his family was “heartbroken this stage of their life has been cut short”.
Reports say passengers Mary and Rodney Burrows had been married for 30 years.
Reports say they had been travelling with friends and fellow passengers Catherine and Robert Lawton.
Mr Lawton’s brother, Robert, said: “Dad phoned this morning and said, ‘Bobby’s plane’s missing’. I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t believe it. We just want to know where it is, where the plane’s come down, if there’s anything left.”
Rodney Burrows had planned his trip to China after being laid off last year, Australian Associated Press reports.
The youngest
At just 23 months old, Wang Moheng was one of the youngest passengers on board flight MH370. He was returning from a week’s holiday in Malaysia with his mother Jiao Weiwei, 32, and father, Wang Rui, 35.
Two of his grandparents were also on board the plane.
The families of other children at Moheng’s day care centre joined his family in Malaysia, but returned on separate flights, the New York Times reports.
His family reportedly said they were trying to get away “from the bad air in Beijing for a while”.
Lost generations
The Wall Street Journal reports that many members of the same families were lost on flight MH370.
Six members of one Chinese family are missing, the paper says, including a four-year-old girl and a two-year-old boy, who were both US citizens.
French national Laurence Wattrelos, 52, was returning from a beach holiday in Malaysia with two of her three children, Hadrien, 17, and Ambre, 14.
Hadrien’s girlfriend, Zhao Yan, 18, was also on board.
Reports say the French teenagers had been attending the French school in Beijing and that Laurence was active in the school’s parent-teacher association.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Laurence’s husband, Ghyslain Wattrelos, flew into Beijing from Paris the same day flight MH370 went missing, and was expecting to be reunited with his family.
He was instead met by two French diplomats, who broke the news of the missing flight.
The co-workers
Also on the plane were 20 staff members from a US technology company, Freescale Semiconductor, which makes powerful microchips for industries, including defense.
Twelve employees were from Malaysia and eight were from China. The company said it was “deeply saddened” by the news, in a statement on its website.
The Austin-based company said 20 of its employees were on the flight
01:07: The plane sent its last ACARS transmission – a service that allows computers aboard the plane to “talk” to computers on the ground. Sometime afterwards, it was silenced and the expected 01:37 transmission was not sent.
Flight MH370: Audio recording reveals final cockpit communications
01:19: The last communication between the plane and Malaysian air traffic control took place about 12 minutes later. At first, the airline said initial investigations revealed the co-pilot had said “All right, good night”.
However, Malaysian authorities later confirmed the last words heard from the plane, spoken either by the pilot or co-pilot, were in fact “Good night Malaysian three seven zero”.
A few minutes later, the plane’s transponder, which communicates with ground radar, was shut down as the aircraft crossed from Malaysian air traffic control into Vietnamese airspace over the South China Sea.
01:21: The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam said the plane failed to check in as scheduled with air traffic control in Ho Chi Minh City.
02:15: Malaysian military radar plotted Flight MH370 at a point south of Phuket Island in the Strait of Malacca, west of its last known location. Thai military radar logs also confirmed that the plane turned west and then north over the Andaman Sea.
In maps accompanying its 1 May report, the Malaysian government revised the time to be 02:22 and put the position further west.
02:28 (18:28 GMT, 7 March): After the loss of radar, a satellite above the Indian Ocean picked up data from the plane in the form of seven automatic “handshakes” between the aircraft and a ground station. The first was at 02:28 local time.
Years later, the fate of the aircraft is still unknown, and the search has been called off.
The airline
Malaysia Airlines (MAS) began operations in 1972 after splitting off from Malaysia-Singapore Airlines, which was founded in 1947. The airline’s home base is Kuala Lumpur International Airport, with hubs in Kota Kinabalu and Kuching. The airline operates flights throughout East and Southeast Asia, with service to Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East, and Europe and, until April 2014, Los Angeles via Tokyo. It has 105 planes in its fleet.
Flight 370 Timeline
March 8, 2014 (all times in local time):
12:41 a.m.: Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 takes off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport on a scheduled flight to Beijing. The plane, with 239 people onboard, is scheduled to land at Beijing Capital International Airport at 6:30 a.m. local time.
1:19 a.m.: Last communication from co-pilot Fariq Hamid to air traffic controllers in Malaysia, as the plane flies toward Vietnam, across the Gulf of Thailand. Hamid reportedly said, “All right, good night.”
1:21 a.m.: The Boeing 777-2H6ER’s radar transponder is turned off.
2:15 a.m.: The Malaysian military detects an unidentified object on its radar traveling west. This information becomes public roughly a week later, and the radar target is thought to be Flight 370. The plane then disappears from military radar about 200 miles (322 kilometers) off the coast of Malaysian state of Penang.
6:30 a.m.: Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 is scheduled to arrive in Beijing.
8:11 a.m.: A satellite detects the last signal from the plane’s antenna
March 9:
Within 24 hours, search operations begin over the Gulf of Thailand. An oil slick on the water is seen near where the plane was last detected, but lab tests eventually show that the oil came from a ship, not a plane.
March 10:
Search efforts are expanded into the South China Sea, after possible debris is spotted near Hong Kong. Ultimately, Vietnamese searchers are unable to locate objects in the water.
It is also revealed that two passengers used stolen passports to board the flight, which raises concerns about terrorism.
March 11:
An investigation into the stolen documents eventually finds no link between the men and known terrorist groups. Officials conclude that the passengers were likely immigrants seeking asylum as part of a broader attempt to reach Europe.
Malaysian officials tell a local newspaper that military radar evidence suggests the plane turned around mid-flight.
March 12:
An investigation is opened into the possibility that Flight 370 was hijacked or sabotaged. China releases satellite images of potential debris floating between the South China Sea and the Gulf of Thailand. The search area is expanded, but the Malaysia government later says the Chinese satellite images do not show parts of the missing plane.
March 13:
Search efforts move toward the Indian Ocean, as officials try to piece together the plane’s flight path after air traffic controllers lost radar contact.
March 14:
Individuals familiar with the investigation tell the New York Times that the plane lost significant altitude after it lost contact with ground controllers. Intelligence officials probe the possibility that one of the pilots or crewmembers played a role in the plane’s disappearance.
March 15:
The Malaysian government reports that the homes of the pilots were searched, following suspicions that someone onboard may have tampered with the plane’s communication system. Investigations continue to examine the possible role the pilots played in the plane’s disappearance.
Later, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak says there is a possibility that the plane’s communications were “deliberately disabled” before it disappeared and the flight was intentionally diverted, though there is no evidence that the flight was hijacked.
The last satellite transmission from Flight 370 is traced to the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Australia.
March 16:
An international search operation mounts, focusing primarily on the Indian Ocean. New analyses suggest the plane continued to operate for roughly seven hours after it last made contact with ground controllers.
March 17:
Indonesia and Australia use patrol aircraft to search large sections of the southern Indian Ocean. Malaysian law enforcement officials expand their investigation to include all passengers, crew and ground staff present on March 8.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak asks Australia to lead the ongoing search operation.
March 18:
Reports indicate Thai military radar may have detected Flight 370, but the information was not shared with — or requested by — Malaysian officials until now. Search efforts continue over the Indian Ocean.
March 19:
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation joins the Malaysian government’s ongoing investigation by analyzing data taken from the pilot’s home flight simulator. Malaysia defense minister confirms that files were deleted from the program on Feb. 3.
An analysis of the plane’s fuel reserves narrows the search area to a smaller region within the southern Indian Ocean.
March 20:
Satellite images obtained by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority show possible plane debris in the Southern Indian Ocean. The photos, captured on March 16, show two objects possibly related to the missing aircraft. But, despite organized search efforts across an area spanning nearly 9,000 square miles (23,000 square kilometers), patrol planes are unable to detect any debris.
March 21:
Search planes again fail to locate any debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner. Analyses by British satellite company Inmarsat find that the plane’s steady speed and flight path suggest it is unlikely that the plane was disabled by a catastrophic accident.
March 22:
An Australian patrol plane spots a wooden pallet in the water within the search zone. A Chinese satellite orbiting Earth captured a new photo of objects potentially linked to the missing Malaysia Airlines flight. The images show a large object measuring about 72 feet (22 meters) by 43 feet (13 m) in the southern Indian Ocean.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority tries to locate the objects seen by the Chinese Earth-observation satellite but is unable to find any debris within the reported search area.
March 23:
Images from a French satellite showing potential floating objects are sent to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. The images, produced from satellite-generated radar echoes, or radar signals that provide information about an object’s location, show an object or objects floating about 1,430 miles (2,300 km) off the coast of Perth.
Search efforts again fail to produce any debris in the water.
March 24:
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority begins investigating two objects detected in the water, roughly 1,550 miles (2,500 kilometers) southwest of the Australian city of Perth. The possible debris includes a gray or green circular object and an orange rectangular object.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak holds a press conference and announces that up-to-date satellite information indicates the Malaysia Airlines jetliner crashed in the southern Indian Ocean. Razak says further analysis conducted by the U.K. Accidents Investigation Branch concludes that Flight 370 flew along the southern corridor, with its last known position in the middle of the Indian Ocean, off the west coast of Perth.
Razak says the families of the 239 passengers onboard have been notified.
March 25:
Bad weather, including gale-force winds and heavy rain, stall search efforts for possible debris from the missing plane
March 26:
A field of debris in the Indian Ocean, consisting of 122 floating objects, is seen in satellite images, according to Malaysia’s Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein. The images, taken on Sunday (March 23), cover an area 1,600 miles (2,575 kilometers) off the coast of Perth, near where other satellites previously detected objects potentially linked to the missing Malaysian jetliner.
March 27:
A Thai satellite spots more than 300 floating objects possibly tied to the missing plane. The potential debris, detected by the Thailand Earth Observation Satellite, is located roughly 1,700 miles (2,740 kilometers) southwest of Perth, Australia.
March 28:
Investigators in five different patrol planes detect “multiple objects of various colors” within a new search area, which is nearly 700 miles north of the previous area of focus. This new region, about 1,150 miles (1,850 kilometers) west of the Australian city of Perth, is of interest after studies suggest the plane may have run out of fuel earlier, and thus crashed sooner, than previously thought.
March 30:
An Australian search plane spots at least four floating orange objects measuring more than 6 feet (1.83 meters) in the water.
March 31:
The floating objects seen the day before are located and retrieved by Australian and Chinese ships, but after some analysis, are not believed to be linked to the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. A robotic submarine is deployed to try to locate the aircraft’s flight recorders, including the plane’s black box, which has a roughly 30-day battery life.
April 4:
A Chinese ship detects sounds, described as “pulse signals,” in the Indian Ocean. Investigators say the signals are at the same frequency as the plane’s black boxes.
April 7:
An Australian ship, called Ocean Shield, picks up signals consistent with those emitted from airplane black boxes in the northern part of the designated search area. The first signal lasts 2 hours and 20 minutes, and after the ship turns around, a second signal is detected and held for 13 minutes.
April 8:
An Australian ship detects more signals that could be from the missing plane’s black box. The new signals last a total of 12 minutes.
April 13:
The Australian Ocean Shield ship detects an oil slick on the water, although it is unclear where the oil came from. A sample of the water is collected for examination.
April 14:
An unmanned submarine, the Bluefin-21, is deployed to scan the ocean floor and search for debris or wreckage from the missing jetliner.
April 17:
The Bluefin-21 submarine searches 35 square miles (90 square kilometers) of the ocean floor but does not locate any debris. In yet another setback, officials say the oil slick discovered in the search area did not come from the missing plane.
April 29:
Malaysian officials and their international partners investigate a claim by Australian company GeoResonance that it has found possible signs of aircraft wreckage in the shape of the missing aircraft in the Bay of Bengal, 3,000 miles from the current search area in the Southern Indian Ocean.
May 2:
The aerial search has concluded with no signs of debris, and the underwater search enters a new phase with side scan sonar. The ship Ocean Shield is returning to port to replenish supplies and personnel, and will return to the search with Phoenix’s Bluefin-21 submersible.
July 29, 2015
The first confirmed debris are found on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean.
Feb. 27, 2016
Two more Boeing 777 debris are discovered on a beach in Mozambique. An analysis completed on March 24 concluded that “the debris is almost certainly from MH370,” said Darren Chester, the Australian minister for infrastructure and transport. He added that drift modeling explains how debris from the plane, which likely crashed in the Indian Ocean, ended up in Mozambique.
July 22, 2016
Australia, China and Malaysia agree that if the aircraft is not located by the time 120,000 square kilometers (46,000 square miles) have been covered, the search will be suspended.
July 30, 2016
A large wing part found on a Tanzanian island “highly likely” came from the missing aircraft, according to Australia’s transport minister.
October 7, 2016
A fragment of a wing discovered in Mauritius in May is confirmed as coming from the missing plane.
January 17, 2017
The underwater search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is suspended nearly three years after the plane vanished without a trace over the Indian Ocean, according to a joint statement from Chinese, Australian and Malaysian officials.
08:11: (00:11 GMT, 8 March) the last full handshake was at 08:11. This information, disclosed a week after the plane’s disappearance, suggested the jet was in one of two flight corridors, one stretching north between Thailand and Kazakhstan, the other south between Indonesia and the southern Indian Ocean.
08:19: However, there is some evidence of a further “partial handshake” at this time between the plane and a ground station. This was a request from the aircraft to log on. Investigators say this is consistent with the plane’s satellite communication equipment powering up after an outage – such as after an interruption to its electrical supply.
09:15: This would have been the next scheduled automatic contact between the ground station and the plane, but there was no response from the aircraft.
The search
The plane’s planned route would have taken it north-eastwards, over Cambodia and Vietnam, and the initial search focused on the South China Sea, south of Vietnam’s Ca Mau peninsula.
But evidence from a military radar, revealed later, suggested the plane had suddenly changed from its northerly course to head west. So the search, involving dozens of ships and planes, then switched to the sea west of Malaysia.
Further evidence revealed on 15 March 2014 by the Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak suggested the jet was deliberately diverted by someone on board about an hour after take-off.
After MH370’s last communication with a satellite was disclosed, a week after the plane’s disappearance, the search was expanded dramatically to nearly three million square miles – about 1.5% of the surface of the Earth.
However, from 16 March, tracking data released by the Malaysian authorities appeared to confirm that the plane crashed in the Indian Ocean, southwest of Australia, with possible locations refined following further satellite analysis.
There were a few false positives along the way. In early April 2015, Australian and Chinese vessels using underwater listening equipment detected ultrasonic signals, which officials believed could be from the plane’s “black box” flight recorders. The pings appeared to be the most promising lead so far, and were used to define the area of a sea-floor search, conducted by the Bluefin-21 submersible robot.
Nothing was found and it was only in December 2015 that Australian officials said they had refined the search area and were confident they were looking in the right area for the plane.
IMAGE SOURCE, GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
Searchers combed the southern reaches of the Indian Ocean
In the end, an Australian-led search using underwater drones and sonar equipment deployed from specialist ships loaned by various nations combed a vast 120,000km area of the Southern Indian Ocean – but turned up nothing.
In December 2016 investigators admitted the plane was unlikely to be in that search area and recommended searching further north.
Experts identified a new area of approximately 25,000 sq km to the north of the current search area that had the “highest probability” of containing the wreckage. This was the last area the plane could possibly be located, given current evidence, the report said.
But Australia ruled out continuing the search beyond its scheduled end.
Areas searched up to January 2017
Debris discovered.
Although the underwater search turned up nothing, it was along a coastline thousands of miles away that clues began to wash up on beaches.
On 29 July 2015, a 2m-long (6ft) piece of plane debris was found by volunteers cleaning a beach in St Andre, on the north-eastern coast of Reunion.
MH370: The key pieces of debris
On 5 August, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak announced that investigators had “conclusively confirmed” the debris was from the missing plane, a finding confirmed by French officials.
However, officials said this did not affect their search plans, as the debris had been carried to Reunion by ocean currents.
It was the first of more than 20 pieces of possible debris found by members of the public, on the African coast and islands in the Indian Ocean.
In November 2016, a report found the recovered wing flaps from the plane were not in the landing position when the plane went down in the Indian Ocean.
It was a significant finding that helped investigators say with more certainty that the flight most likely made a rapid and uncontrolled descent into the Indian Ocean.
So, some bereaved families of those on board the flight are determined to keep the hunt for these clues going.
Who was on board?
IMAGE SOURCE, REUTERS
Image caption,
Muhammad Razahan Zamani (bottom right), 24, and his wife Norli Akmar Hamid, 33, were on their honeymoon on the missing flight. The phone is being held by his stepsister, Arni Marlina
The 12 crew members were all Malaysian, led by pilots Captain Zaharie Ahmed Shah, 53, and 27-year-old co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid.
There were 227 passengers, including 153 Chinese and 38 Malaysians, according to the manifest. Seven were children.
Other passengers came from Iran, the US, Canada, Indonesia, Australia, India, France, New Zealand, Ukraine, Russia, Taiwan and the Netherlands.
Two Iranian men were found to be travelling on false passports. But further investigation revealed 19-year-old Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad and Delavar Seyed Mohammadreza, 29, were headed for Europe via Beijing, and had no apparent links to terrorist groups.
Among the Chinese nationals was a delegation of 19 prominent artists, who had attended an exhibition in Kuala Lumpur.
Malaysia Airlines said there were four passengers who checked in for the flight but did not show up at the airport.
The family members of those on board were informed in person, by phone and by text message on 24 March that the plane had been lost.
Steve Ramsey, PhD.
