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___ The Mystery surrounding the disappearance of Flight MH 370


The plane of Malaysia Airlines was on schedule to fly from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Heading in direction to the peninsula of Indochina, the cockpit sent a cryptic message: 'Good night Malaysian three seven zero' and then the plane vanished.

UPDATE: 06.08.2015
Beginning August 2015 on Réunion, an island in the Indian Ocean, 740 km (460 mi) east of Madagascar, a fragment was found which might has been part of a large airplane. Within days speculations run wild, that this was the first physical evidence of Flight MH370 which went missing on 8 March 2014. On 5th August 2015 there is confirmation that the Boeing 777 wing segment indeed belongs to Flight MH370.


This article includes some carefully selected speculations what might has happened to passenger flight MH 370.

Malaysia - 8 March 2014, Malaysia Airlines, the flag carrier of Malaysia, is still missing one of its planes. Flight MH370 with 239 people on board (including crew members) was en route from Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) to Beijing, China, expected to land Saturday morning 6:30 am local time, but Malaysia Airlines lost all contacts to its plane since it was in the airspace south of Vietnam about 1:30 am local time that morning. Until now Malaysia Airlines has not confirmed that there was a fatal accident, but more than 2 days later without any information about flight MH370 one can assume that something went terrible wrong. Speculations about two passengers using stolen passports to get on this flight don't help much to find an explanation about the mysterious disappearance of the Boeing 'Triple Seven' aircraft. What makes this incident mysterious is the fact that the plane's signals vanished just before it was expected to enter Vietnam's airspace, there was no distress signal from the plane (or nobody received it) and until now there is no signal from the planes' black box as well. Map of Malaysia,



What we think we know now

Passenger flight MH 370 has flown on for hours, after the transponder in the Boeing 777-200ER, which also shows the identity of the aircraft, has stopped transmitting and Air Traffic Control in Malaysia has lost contact, just minutes before the plane would have entered Vietnamese airspace.

According to the ATC Malaysia, none of the neighboring countries, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore or Vietnam, have received signals from the missing airplane.

On Saturday the 15. March 2014 the Malaysian prime minister confirmed, that Flight MH 370 has changed its initial course to fly west and later in north west direction. Despite the (deliberate?) shutdown of the plane's communication systems, the airliner emitted signals until 08:11 local time that Saturday morning the 8th of March.

It was assumed that if flight MH 370 was in the air for hours, this fact had increased the radius of the search area considerable, even far into the Indian Ocean -- or into the foothills of the Himalayas and beyond. Malaysian authorities then confirmed that the Boeing Triple Seven had flown westward over the Malay Peninsula and then in a zig-zag route following specific navigational waypoints and later east of the Andaman Islands the plane was heading south into the Indian Ocean.

Some time later based on data from the National Transportation Safety Board (USA) there were established two search corridors within the plane would have been heading, a northern corridor, described as an arc from Northern Thailand to the border of Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, and a southern corridor, an arc from west of Peninsular Malaysia into the Southern Indian Ocean.

Since the 18th March there were growing indications, that the plane actually flew in a straight line along the 90° Longitude to the south, heading for the South Pole. Somewhere down this line, possibly southwest of Australia, the airplane run out of fuel and went into the Southern Indian Ocean, making the city of Perth, capital of Western Australia, the nearest location with search and rescue facilities.
Pearce Air Base located in Bullsbrook, north of Perth is now the coordination center of the international search efforts.

 

Maps of Search Areas of Malaysia, Australia and surrounding Countries


UPDATE: 26.03.2014

Narrowed MH 370 Search area Southern Indian Ocean
In search for the missing plane of flight MH 370 of Malaysian Airlines, the search area is narrowing down in the Southern Indian Ocean, and the
possibility to find pieces of debris related to the plane.

Source: Australian Maritime Safety Authority (amsa.gov.au)


UPDATE: 20.03.2014
MH 370 Search area Indian Ocean


Map shows the area where Australian Maritime Safety Authority is searching for the missing Boeing Triple Seven of flight MH 370 in the Southern Indian Ocean within the Australian Search and Rescue Region.

Source: Australian Maritime Safety Authority (amsa.gov.au)
smi
Australian Maritime Safety Authority Search Area in the South Indian Ocean. Map source: Google Maps

The reason that Australia is searching this area is because it lies more or less on the endpoint of the southern arc of the two possible flight routes of MH 370, and there are the satellite images from that region showing possible debris from the airline. But what in the world is an airplane doing in this remote area, far, far away from any civilization. It is one of the most hostile regions on the planet and in the middle of nowhere?

possible debris from MH 370

ex
Map of Asia with a hypothetical search radius for Malaysian Airlines Flight MH 370.
WHAT HAPPENED

Map of Malaysia with areas of search and rescue Flight MH 370
Map of Peninsular Malaysia with major airports in the former area of the search endeavor.
 
Kuala Lumpur Johor Bahru Phnom Penh Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) Singapore Singapore Indonesia Thailand Myanmar Vietnam Cambodia Map is showing West Malaysia and surrounding countries and the areas which were first searched for the missing airplane of Malaysian Airlines flight MH 370 leaving from Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing, China. The plane went missing early morning of 8 March 2014 local time. Its position was then according to Malaysian Airlines over the South China Sea somewhere between the Malay peninsula and Vietnam's southern tip of Ca Mau.
Until then there were no information and still is no explanation for the disappearance of the Boeing Triple Seven, only a lot of speculations about what might have gone wrong that night. Family members of people on board are still waiting desperately for any news since 16 days now. One can hardly imagine what these people are going through, torn between hope and desperation on a daily basis.


Some 50 ships and aircraft of several nations including India, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Australia, and the US were involved in the search and rescue effort, but until 24 th March with no results. No sign of a wreckage or debris, no signal from the flight recorder (black box).
Malaysia had broadened the search area considerably, they even include search in the Strait of Malacca and into the Andaman Sea, which lies opposite to the intended route of flight MH 370. The reason for that was that they've learned about recorded data from military radar which indicated that an unidentified flying object (plane) has been in the region of flight MH 370 and moved from there north west in the opposite direction of the original course of the Triple Seven. But, the area is full of air-traffic with several international airports in the region. (See list of Int. Airports below the map)
It just shows that the authorities still have no clue what happened with the plane. After the involvement of two Iranian passengers traveling with stolen passports were ruled out having something to do with a terrorist attack, the attention later concentrated on all passengers as well as crew members of flight MH 370. We mentioned that we assume 2 days after the disappearance of Flight MH 370 that there will be thorough background checks by all involved intelligence agencies as well as by Interpol of all of the people on board this airplane - but it took the authorities one week to do so.
 
search area Indian Ocean
Map of Southeast Asia with a hypothetical search radius centered at Kuala Lumpur airport.
Depicted on the map are also major airports in the region. There are international airports at Medan, Kuala Namu International Airport (KNO), Phuket International Airport (HKT), Phnom Penh International Airport (PNH), Siem Reap International Airport (REP) at Tonle Sap, Tan Son Nhat International Airport (SGN) Ho Chi Minh City, Cam Ranh International Airport (CXR) near Nha Trang, Kuching International Airport (KCH), Senai International Airport (JHB) Johor Bahru, and Singapore International Airport (SIN).
 
 
More about Malaysia:

Cities:
Searchable Map and Satellite View of Kuala Lumpur (capital city)
Searchable map/satellite view of the city of Johor Bahru

Country:
Searchable Map and Satellite View of Malaysia
Political Map of Malaysia
Malaysia Country Profile

Continent:
Map of Southeast Asia
Map of Asia
Kuala Lumpur Weather Conditions:



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