Can a plane really disappear into thin air? The history of flight MH370 of Malaysia Airlines is unfortunately an example of this. The aircraft, a Boeing 777-200ER departed from Kuala Lampur and headed to Beijing, disappeared from tracking systems on Saturday 8 March 2014and although more than 10 years have passed, it has still not been found. The official news was given by the company, which after hours of research was forced to communicate the news to the press.
It seems like an almost incredible story, especially if we think about the fact that the search operations were the most expensive in the history of civil aviationwith a huge deployment of public and private vehicles and people actively involved on multiple fronts, who searched far and wide hundreds of areas where it is assumed that the vehicle sank.
Over the years there have been many hypotheses about what could have happened – from the breakdown to the terrorist attack – which have contributed to fueling the aura of mystery around the story, and even Netflix produced a documentary about this story (“Flight MH370: the plane disappeared into thin air“).
The reconstruction of the disappearance of flight MH370
The flight left at 00.42 on 8 March (in Italy it was 17.42 on 7 March) from Kuala Lampurin Malaysia, and was headed to Beijingcapital of China. It would have been a flight of about 5 and a half hours, on a busy route, and the passengers on board (227) were almost all Chinese. They were joined by the 12 crew members of Malaysia Airlines.
The weather conditions were optimal, and during the first hour of the journey the crew did not report any problems to the control center in the Kuala Lumpur area.
Shortly after around 1 am the aircraft informed the control center that it had reached 10,700 meters altitude and that everything was proceeding as normal. At 1.20am the commander confirmed to the control center that everything was ready for the handover of the communication: upon entering Vietnamese territory, in fact, it was necessary to transfer air control to the Ho Chi Minh centre. The pilot greeted his colleagues from the Malaysian center by saying:
Goodnight from Malaysian three seven zero.
Upon entering Vietnamese airspace, the pilot would then have to contact colleagues on the ground and report his entry. There was no communication, however. Almost 40 minutes had passed since departure from Kuala Lumpur, and despite the silence the plane was still detected by radar and satellite systems.
The controllers at the Vietnamese center, alarmed, contacted the Malaysian ones to ask for information on the flight. They worked together, albeit remotely, for hours and hours. They tried to understand where the plane was, but any contact with the crew proved impossible. So it was that in the early hours of dawn the airline had to write a press release that would then be distributed throughout the world: flight MH370 was missing. Malaysian Airlines immediately started a coordination activity with the Malaysian government to activate the search, rescue and recovery of the aircraft, which was now implicitly believed to have sunk in the ocean waters.
The flight had completely changed course
Those first days of research were very hectic: reconnaissance planes arrived from various directions, all the radio points and satellites were analysed.
After about 5 days it was possible to reconstruct the plane’s journey. Instead of continuing north-east and reaching Beijing, at 1.21 it was clear from satellites that the aircraft – at that time in the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea – had turned south-west, passing through Malaysian airspace again. Once it reached Penang Island, the flight began to head north-east, but that route could never have taken it to China. It was in fact in the home stretch for the Andaman Islands (belonged to India).
But how come the plane completely changed course and managed to continue its flight for hours without encountering other planes and disappearing from the radar?
Well, as far as planes are concerned, it was pure luck that the plane didn’t cross paths with any of them. For the surprising change of course, even today we wonder if it is not due to a hijacking due to some terrorist group. But it is quite unlikely, according to some experts, because in that case at least one of the passengers could have sent a secret text message.
The hypotheses on what happened to the Malaysian Airline plane
In the very first days we immediately thought of a technical failurebut something wasn’t right: a plane at 10,000 meters above sea level doesn’t crash in a few seconds, so there would have been enough time to inform the control center. But in addition to the lack of this type of communication, there were also no updates on the location.
In particular, the plane was thought to be depressurizedand that the passengers, stewardesses and pilots had lost consciousness. But then who was flying the plane? Automatic systems. What is certain is that, in this case, the aircraft at a certain point would have lost altitude and would have sunk. However, according to experts it is an unlikely hypothesis, as is the theory of the pilot’s suicide (in that case the crew would have had time to warn the ground). It was then also hypothesized that a fire could have exploded fire which in turn would have led to a short circuit, but this does not explain – once again – why none of the passengers sent at least a message, given that they would have had the material time to do so.
A few months later there were even those who theorized that it had been a rocket to hit the plane, given that the same year, on July 17th to be precise, flight MH17 was shot down by a missile over Ukrainian territory by mistake.
The investigations to date and the errors in the research
For at least three years there was an enormous deployment of forces, both on the part of private companies what about public institutionsdesperately searching for the plane. But the area to be scoured is really large, and although the seabed has been explored and at least 120 thousand square kilometers of sea have been covered, the means has not been found, and without the black box (which isn’t black!) it is impossible to accurately reconstruct the ‘happened. Between 2015 and 2016, however, they were fragments of the cabin were found on some beaches along the route traced by the plane, and which were declared as belonging to the missing vehicle.
Despite the research almost incessant and extremely expensive (the most expensive in civil aviation), even today we do not have precise answers about what happened, and in 2018 a report from the Malaysian government published a report declaring the many errors that occurred during the first weeks of research, but above all the incorrect management of communications between the plane and the Malaysian control center.
Every year the relatives of the victims take to the streets to manifest and remind the government that the matter is not closed, and that it is necessary to continue with the investigations and continue with the research. American society Ocean Infinitywho had already participated in the searches years ago, took the matter to heart and at the beginning of 2024 proposed reopening reconnaissance in the area where the plane is suspected to have sunk. In that area the seabed is about 4000 meters deep, but the currents are not so strong as to have moved the debris, or at least they have not been moved that much compared to the area of the probable impact. The hope therefore is that the means available – which have become even more precise over the years – can put an end to this story and provide the answers it deserves.