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.
- Samuel Davey et al., Bayesian Methods in Search for MH370 (Springeropen Singapore, 2016), 7. ↵
- Samuel Davey et al., Bayesian Methods in Search for MH370 (Springeropen Singapore, 2016), 7. ↵
- Jenthro Mullen, “Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: What we know and don’t know,” CNN News, March 13, 2014, https://www.cnn.com/ ↵
- “Missing Malaysia plane MH370: What we know,” BBC News, January 17, 2017, https://www.bbc.com/news. ↵
- Ruwantissa Abeyratne, “Flight MH370 and the Lithium Battery Theory,” Air Cargo World, May 2014. ↵
- “Malaysia Airlines search: Jet already had turned before co-pilots ‘good night’ message,” Fox News, December 3, 2015, ” href=”https://www.foxnews.com/world/malaysia-airlines-search-jet-already-had-turned-before-co-pilots-good-night-message”>https://www.foxnews.com. ↵
- “Missing Malaysia plane MH370: What we know,” BBC News, January 17, 2017, https://www.bbc.com/news ↵
- Lindsey M Bier, Sejin Park, and Michael J. Palenchar, “Framing the Flight MH370 Mystery: A Content Analysis of Malaysian, Chinese, and U.S. Media,” The International Communication Gazette, no. 2 (2018): 158. ↵
- “Experts have confirmed that the debris found on Reunion Island last week was that of Malaysian Airlines flight 370 that went missing last year, Malaysia’s prime minister said Wednesday,”Malaysia Prime Minister, August 5, 2015, Associated Press, 2o15, Associated Press Video Collection, streaming video, 1:46, EBSCO (AN 16aaa4d0-387b-45fb-8d9b-73e660291a38). ↵
108 comments
Hali Garcia
This is a very tragic story and my heart goes out to the families. I remember watching the news when this happened and I was very confused. To this day I still wonder what happened and why there are not any answers. When parts of the plane was found I hoped that there would be some answers but there were none. I was shocked when the news stopped reporting because I was hoping there would still be investigating.
Rebeca Escobar
Stories like this make me very scared of planes, despite them being the safest form of travel. I remember this story coming out on the news, and I wondered for the longest time what happened to that plane and everyone on it. It still leaves me dumbfounded and i hope someday they find out what happened. This event reminds me of the previous malfunction of an Ethiopian plane that resulted in the deaths of everyone on board; it’s scary to think about the last moments for everyone on that plane.
Tala Owens
Its crazy how there was no way to know how this plane disappeared, where, or why. It must be very frustrating to the families of those who were on the plane. It’s a very scary situation to be in because on as a passenger on a plane you have very little to no control or anyway to save yourself if anything goes wrong. It’s weird how parts of the plane were found but in separate parts of the ocean. It seems flight mh370 will remain a tragic mystery.
Ryan Estes
I remember the Australian search team looking for the plane for a long period of time. I actually forgot the fact that they found debris in the water. The weirdest part of this whole story is that no one knows what actually happened. You would think something as large as an airplane would be accounted for at all times. I wonder if they are still looking for the plane at the moment.
Antonio Coffee
I remember when this story was all over the news and there was so much speculation about what happened to the flight. I remember that CNN was covering it for 24 hours and that some of the theories about it were a little out of left field. One of them even went as far as to mention time travel. The mystery really gripped the world and lead to a few conspiracies. This was such a large event that most people forget about now.
Engelbert Madrid
It’s quite mysterious how no one has any clue of what happened to the Malaysian Airline Flight MH370 after its crash. Also, there was no sign of any survivors or bodies that were in that flight. This article truly does a magnificent job on keeping the readers engaged of the mysterious situation that left many people with many questions that have no answers.
Victoria Salazar
Very tragic. I think closure is one of the most important parts of a family grieving the loss of their loved ones. It puzzles me how a plane could go down with no sign of any sort. The only possibility I could think of was if the pilot and copilot hijacked the plane, but then what would the reason have been? There was no publicity afterwards showing that it was for a certain cause.
Ruben Basaldu
This is so weird to think that there was no way of figuring out what happened to this plane and what happened to the people on that plane. I remember seeing this on the news stations for a very long time as people were trying to find the plane but sadly we never did find it. I think this article does a really good job of explaining the situation that occurred and made it an even more interesting story to tell and for the audience to read.
Chelsea Alvarez
I remember hearing about this incident on the news when this first occurred. I didn’t really know much about what took place other than the airplane disappearing, so it is very interesting that there are so many theories as to what may have happened. The possibility of this plane being highjacked is a very scary thought, but what’s even scarier is the thought of the plane catching fire and disintegrating into ashes. Overall, this was a really good article and the unsolved mystery of this flight and its passengers gives me chills.
Maya Mani
This is such a sad story and it’s frustrating that we won’t ever seem to find an answer. Plane crashes are very rare but when they happen, it’s scary and tragic nonetheless. Personally for me, the most realistic explanation is the lithium batteries as stated in the article. The plane was catching on fire, and the pilots tried to land on the nearest airport and had to change their route, but unfortunately couldn’t make it.