How the mystery of flight MH370 unfolded over 38 catastrophic minutes

On March 8, 2014, 227 passengers and 12 crew members embarked on a plane headed to Beijing, but never made it to their destination – and their fate remains unknown.

Ten years on from the disappearance of Malaysian airlines Flight MH370, more questions remain than answers about the fate of the plane.

After the most extensive search in aviation history, what happened to the aircraft and its passengers remains a mystery – and a source for multiple conspiracy theories.

Malaysia, along with Australia and China, ended in January 2017 a two-year, $130-million underwater hunt for the aircraft, with no answers.

But as this month marks the 10th anniversary, Malaysia is once again pushing for a renewed search for the plane.

And the ten year anniversary of one of aviation’s greatest mysteries has renewed interest in the bizarre disappearance – let’s take a look at how it unfolded.

March 8, 2014, 12:41am: Take off

Flight MH370 takes off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, heading for Beijing China. All communications and tracking systems are working.

At 1:07am, just 26 minutes after departing the Malaysian capital, one of the plane’s communication systems sent what turned out to be the last transmission from the aircraft.

Malaysia’s Ministry of Transport said of the signal: ‘It showed nothing unusual. The 1:07 a.m. transmission showed a normal routing all the way to Beijing.’

March 8, 2014, 1:19am: Last vocal check-in

One of the pilots in the cockpit – either first officer Fariq Abdul Hamid, or Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah – made a voice-check in at 1:19am.

‘All right, good night,’ one of the pilots said. It’s a common phrase used by pilots on radio when moving from one airspace to another.

But two minutes after the final vocal check-in, the plane’s transponder was switched off.

With the transponder turned off, the plane is essentially ‘flying blind’ from the ground’s point of view – no information about the aircraft can be detected, other than knowing it’s up there through radar.

The plane then appeared to change course within the next ten minutes, according to the Malaysian government, though it’s unknown when or if the plane had been reprogrammed to fly off course.

At 1:30am, civilian radar lost contact with the plane as it flew over the Gulf of Thailand, between Malaysia and Vietnam.

March 8, 2014, 2:15am: Military radar detects the plane once more

The Malaysian Air Force detected flight MH370 as it passed over Pulau Perak, a small island in the Strait of Malacca – putting it hundreds of miles off course. This is the last time the plane was found on radar.

At 2:40am, Malaysia Airlines said it learned that MH370 was missing from radar and began a search before issuing a code red search at 3:45am.

The plane was meant to land in Beijing at 6:30am, but did not arrive – and a public announcement of the plane’s disappearance was made at 7:24am on Facebook.

Then around 8:11am, a satellite tracked the plane more than seven hours after takeoff, but experts concur the plane seemed to fly towards the Indian Ocean.

The search begins

No trace of MH370 was found after a massive search was launched in the Indian Ocean with help from Australian authorities.

On July 29, 2015, part of the plane’s right wing was found on the French island of Reunion, around 2,300 miles west of the area of the Indian Ocean searches had been focused on.

Countless other fragments from what is thought to be MH370 were found on the coasts of Tanzania, Mozambique, Madagascar, Mauritius and South Africa in the year following. 

Later, three of the fragments were confirmed to be part of MH370 – but didn’t provide any further clues as to the fate of the aircraft.

January 2017: the search is called off

After months of searching and sweeping the sea floor over an area of more than 46,000 square miles, the Australian, Malaysian and Chinese governments called off the search.

Just a year later, the Malaysian government began another search with Ocean Infinity – but that search ended after a few months with no signs of the plane.

MH370 Theories

In the chaos following the plane’s disappearance, countless theories – some verging on the absurd – emerged about what could have happened to the flight.

The official explanation of what happened to MH370 was a crash into the Southern Indian Ocean.

In 2014, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said in a press conference: ‘MH370 flew along the southern corridor, and that its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth.

‘This is a remote location, far from any possible landing sites. It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you, according to this new data, flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean.’

Even with an ‘official’ conclusion of the plane’s fate, conspiracy theories have continued to swirl.

The pilots

One widely shared theory was that Zaharie Shah, one of the pilots, committed suicide and flew the plane to a remote area of the Indian Ocean, taking the lives of those on board as well.

This theory has not been proven – and Mr Shah’s family has continued to deny that he would have done such an act.

The second pilot, Fariq Abdul Hamid, was accused of overpowering the pilot and disabling the aircraft for ‘personal issues’. 

His family has said he was engaged to Captain Nadira Ramli, another pilot based in Malaysia, and loved his job – giving no known reasons for him to have done such a thing.

Shot down

Some have suggested that MH370 was shot down by the US, who may have feared the flight was hijacked and headed to attack a military base on Diego Garcia atoll in the Indian Ocean.

The US has vehemently denied this, and the debris washed up on the east coast of Africa also seems to disprove this.

North Korea

Some theorists have suggested North Korea could be involved.

The country was accused by some theorists of shooting down the flight or hijacking it – though these remain unproven.

Hijacking by passenger or crew

Some have speculated that someone onboard hijacked the plane- cabin crew, pilots, or passengers, with some suggesting even a stowaway could have been onboard. 

Two Iranian passengers were on MH370 with stolen Italian and Austrian passports, but they appear to have been asylum seekers headed to China, rather than someone trying to take over the plane.

Another theory involving hijacking involved the idea that a Russian terrorist hijacked the plane and took over the air craft.

This theory claims the terrorists faked the aircraft data and flew to Kazakhstan – but this has since been ruled out.

Ten years on, it remains unknown what the fate of flight MH370 is.

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