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
William Rittenhouse
This was such a tragic and mysterious event and I hope one day we can discover what happened to the fight. This is not the only time this has happened in history. There has been a few others that have dissapeared without a trace. This one was so important because it was carrying so many passengers. I don’t think Malaysian airlines has the best track record for being safe either. They have had other crashes happen that were known.
Donte Joseph
The Malaysian flight is one of the biggest mysteries and I still remember when it had happened. There was such little information that I was thoroughly confused and did not know if it was real or not. I wish there was a better explanation than just having to accept that a plane straight up disappeared. I hope that over time, the real truth will come out instead of having to rely on theories.
Enrique Segovia
I have this memory of hearing the news about a Malaysian airline flight that disappeared with 239 passengers. I consider this event really important because many families lost their loved ones with no explanation of their whereabouts. It would be really hard for me to get the news that my loved ones were travelling, and unexpectedly, they simply disappeared. I also have heard many theories of who made this plane disappear, but it all is a mystery until the speculations become factual.
Jocelyn Moreno
It’s so crazy how they can all go missing without a trace. I’ve heard many theories of what may have had happened and it’s just so scary to me how we have yet to know what happened. May they someday solve this mystery and the souls rest in peace.
Alyssa Garza
Interesting article to read I remember a bit about this accident from the news and I still can’t believe no one truly knows what happened to the plane. It’s sad that 239 people are gone but it’s even more sad that there are no answers to the families that lost a loved one that day. I’m curious about the lithium batteries that were on board I don’t know how they can affect planes, but I would like to know more about this theory.
Damian Jennings
Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 is a topic I really do not fancy, simply because there is no happy ending or any reasonable explanation for the disappearance of that flight. Although there is no concrete explanation there are countless theories and ideas as to why the plane just miraculously vanished. I believe that conspiracies are way more intriguing than an actual answer. Great read and a great article.
Nathan Alba
I thought this was a really good article. I can remember when the whole flight situation went down. No one had even the slightest idea or clue as to what happened to the plane or its passengers. So many theories arose out of speculation but no evidence turned up till that first part of the plane was found. But then that just goes to raise more questions doesn’t it? And to that, still no one knows for sure as to what caused the flight to take a turn for the worse.
Daniela Cardona
I had heard of this flight before when it blew up on Twitter recently. Everyone swore there was a voice recording from the flight and it proved aliens wrecked he plane and were coming back. This article really interested me, I just wish I felt I had a better understanding after reading. I know there is no explanation, but it feels like a cliff hanger.
Lynsey Mott
I have always watched shows and movies that have had airplanes crash or they get lost and no one can find them. And its really a mystery to how a big plane can even get lost. How no one can find it, and so that’s how the Malaysian Airline Flight MH370 could be gone, lost, without anyone finding it. With all the technology we have in the world, and the money that seems to swarm new objects coming to us everyday, you would think that someone, somewhere could find out what happened to the plane and those people on the plane and give their loved ones some peace as to what happened.
Jabnel Ibarra
Flight MH370 made headlines for much of the summer of 2014. The tragic story of its flight lives on in my memory as another creepy example of how quickly some story can become popular in global news for a very brief period and then, like MH370, just drop off the face of the planet to seemingly never be heard from again. The fact that I’m reading this article today is evidence to me that I’m not the only one that thought at some point “What ever happened to that missing airline?”