It was March 8, 2014, when 239 people boarded the Malaysian Airline Flight MH370 with absolutely no idea that their flight would be taking a very unexpected turn. The Malaysian airline departed from Kuala Lumpur Airport on route to Beijing, China, making its way over Cambodia and Vietnam on schedule and with no delays.¹ While the airline was in flight, within an hour after takeoff, the airline went completely off radar; after that, no one knew what happened to flight MH370.² Neither pilot nor co-pilot of the plane reported any problems to air traffic control during the beginning or throughout the remainder of the flight to Beijing. To this day, many do not know whether the pilots of the flight had anything to do with the disappearance of the airline.³ Research tells us that within less than an hour, Flight 370 lost all contact with air traffic control with absolutely no explanation. The last message ever heard from the airline was the pilot or co-pilot saying, “Good night Malaysian, three seven zero.” Then, one hour later after the final message sent to air traffic control, the airline went completely off military radar. In order for the flight to go completely off radar, the flight must have taken a different route or flown four hours more than scheduled. And according to the final radar image, the airline was last seen going the opposite direction from the original route.⁴ After being informed that the flight did in fact change its route to Beijing, many began to suspect that the airline was hijacked, either by a passenger or possibly by one or both of the pilots. Many also began to suspect that there was a possibility that the airline carried lithium batteries during the flight. Lithium batteries can cause any plane to catch on fire within the cargo and potentially cause the flight to crash land or land in airports that were not on route to the destination. This theory of Flight 370 made researchers believe that the airline did catch on fire due to lithium batteries and therefore caused the captain to change route, land in the nearest airport, and potentially go missing on the way to the nearest airport.⁵

In 2014, Australia took responsibility for searching for the airline in the Indian Ocean with just the slightest idea where the airline might have crashed, landed, or sunk. Within the week of Australia’s search for the airline, the search widened by over 3 million square miles.⁶ After months of rigorous searching, debris of the plane was found in the water. It was on July 29, 2015, when a flap of the airline’s wing was found, miles away from where Australia’s search team was searching, on Reunion Island. The plane’s part was found by a group of volunteers cleaning a beach on St. Andre.⁷

So, with the discovery of the flap, it leaves many wondering, where is flight MH370? How did the flight manage to crash, sink, or land with absolutely no clue as to how it did so? By December of 2015, the Australian search team widened the search even more. As of May 2016, three pieces of the airline have been found, and all in different places in the sea. But unfortunately enough, there has not been any more discoveries of the plane since then.⁸ After the pieces of the plane were found, the Malaysian government declared the disappearance of MH370 an accident with no survivors.⁹ The plane has yet to be discovered.

It was March 8, 2014, when the souls of 239 people became one of the greatest mysteries of all time. The story of the Malaysian Airline Flight MH370 will always have society wondering what exactly happened to the flight and where is it located. And for every time the story of the Malaysian Airline Flight is told, people are going to be left thinking of all the possible theories that might have caused the disappearance of the plane. Until the mystery of the airline’s disappearance is solved, all 239 souls will finally be able to rest in peace and their families will no longer have to mourn over the mysterious deaths of their loved ones.