What happened to the missing Malaysia Airlines flight and its search?

(CNN Spanish) — It was nine years ago, but it remains one of the biggest mysteries in aviation history: what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared on March 8, 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.

The smallest passenger I am only two years old. The eldest, 76. They were a mixed group: vacationers, frequent travelers and even Buddhist pilgrims. What happened to them?

Malaysia Airlines plane goes missing

The plane took off from the Malaysian capital at 12:41 a.m. on March 8, 2014, according to reconstruction cases carried out by authorities after the mysterious disappearance. Formerly CNN. About half an hour later, one of the plane’s communication systems turned on its last transmission. No one found anything strange.

Beginning at 1:21 p.m., a series of unexpected events began that have not yet been fully explained because the plane has not been found: the transponder — the system that transmits vital information about the plane — stopped communicating, the plane disappeared from the Thai military radar that was tracking it, and appeared to change course, a civilian radar with the plane. Contact was lost and planned communication did not take place.

At 3:45 a.m., two hours later, Malaysia Airlines issued a “code red” alert for the plane’s disappearance from radar, indicating a critical situation requiring immediate deployment of emergency plans.

But the plane did not arrive in Beijing at 6:30 am as scheduled and could not be traced anywhere else. About an hour later, authorities made a public announcement about the disappearance.

Millionaire searches without results

The plane was once believed to be at the bottom of the southern Indian Ocean, somewhere called the “seventh arch”. However, the searches failed.

As of January 2017, Malaysia, China and Australia He completed a two-year search operation And it costs 135 million US dollars.

A year later, Ocean Infinity, an American deep-sea exploration company, launched its own operation in the southern Indian Ocean, but neither. Results achieved. By then, Malaysia had offered to pay up to $70 million if the plane was found.

So far, confirmed remains of the plane, and others believed to belong to it, have been found off the coast of Africa and on islands in the Indian Ocean.

Malaysian investigators have not reached a definitive conclusion about what happened to the plane, although they have not ruled out the possibility that it was deliberately diverted from its route, as indicated by an initial assessment. of known US intelligence agencies in 2015.

Information provided by international and Malaysian authorities indicated that the Boeing 777-200ER may have been in the air for hours after the last voice contact with the pilots.
That means someone could have been flying the plane continuously, but couldn’t, or didn’t, communicate.

The Malaysian investigation also raided the homes of the 53-year-old pilot and 27-year-old co-pilot.

Families ask for a new search

In early March 2023, a group of relatives of Vocie370 passengers said they hoped Ocean Infinity would launch a new search to mark the nine years since the disappearance, and urged the Malaysian government to accept any offer. The company charges on a conditional basis, i.e. on sighting of the aircraft.

“Over the past 12 months, Ocean Infinity 2014 has made real progress working with many people (…) to better understand the events,” Voice370 said in a statement. “This has greatly improved their chances of conducting a successful search,” he added.

In a message to the families read at the memorial service, Transport Minister Anthony Locke promised not to close the case, saying future searches would be given due consideration if there was “new and credible information” about the plane’s possible whereabouts. .

This year, the mysterious disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines flight hit the Netflix streaming platform on March 8. First scene Documentaries “MH370: The Missing Flight”.

With information from the Reuters and CNN team.