More than a decade ago, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished without a trace, sparking one of aviation’s most perplexing mysteries.
Despite years of multinational searches, investigators still don’t know exactly what happened to the plane or its 239 passengers and crew.
On Wednesday, the Malaysian government said that the US marine robotics company Ocean Infinity would resume its search on the seabed for the missing aircraft on December 30, rekindling hopes that it may finally be found.
An exhaustive search of the southern Indian Ocean, where the plane is believed to have crashed, yielded virtually nothing. Aside from a few small fragments that washed ashore, no bodies or large debris were ever recovered.
“Good evening, Malaysian Three Seven Zero”
The Boeing 777 disappeared from air traffic control radar 39 minutes after departing Kuala Lumpur for Beijing on March 8, 2014. The pilot’s last radio call to Kuala Lumpur—“Good evening, Malaysian Three Seven Zero”—was the last communication before the plane crossed into Vietnamese airspace and failed to check in with air traffic controllers there.
Minutes later, the plane’s transponder, which transmits its location, went dead. Military radar showed the plane returning over the Andaman Sea, and satellite data suggested it continued flying for hours, possibly until it ran out of fuel, before crashing in a remote area of the southern Indian Ocean.
Theories about what happened range from a hijacking to cabin depressurization or an electrical failure. There was no distress call, no rescue request, and no evidence of technical failure or bad weather.
In 2018, Malaysian investigators exonerated the passengers and crew but did not rule out possible unlawful interference. Authorities claim someone deliberately cut communications and diverted the plane.
