Where is Malaysian Flight 370? In 2014, many flights came and went in airports all over the world, yet the mysterious Malaysian Flight 370 was one of the few that never made it back to land. On March 8 during a standard flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, the plane failed to make contact at its regular intervals after departing the ground at 12:41 am, sparking the beginning of the many theories surrounding the plane and its 227 passengers and 12 flight crew members (Gregersen). Did the plane get hijacked? Did the plane experience a mechanical failure and crash? Was it a pilot’s suicide? Let’s examine the facts and other information surrounding the odd case of Malaysian Flight 370 to discover the most likely explanation of the whereabouts of the plane and its passengers.
Character Analysis
Whenever people think of pilots, they think reliable, smart, and trustworthy because they are responsible for flying a plane full of people safely and making sure their flight makes it back to the ground in one piece. However, Malaysian Flight 370 never made it back. That realization caused investigators to look further into the pilots who were in charge of the passenger’s safety.
Back in 2014, the Malaysian Flight disappeared, which brought up the conspiracy that the event was the outcome of pilot’s mass suicide. The person in question was veteran pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah, of which was reported to have been in an “emotional turmoil over the impending break-up of his marriage” as stated by his daughter (Fedschun). Shah was born on July 31, 1961 and joined Malaysia Airlines in 1981, logging 18,000 hours of flying experience in his time (BBC News). He was said to have been well-respected who was passionate about his work, and even went as far as to create a flight simulator of the Boeing 777-200 that he was piloting (BBC News). Shah also ran his own YouTube channel where he posted flight simulator tutorials to his audience, making himself more widely known amongst the public for his helpful aviation promotions through his positive online presence.
Shah’s personal life was one of the concerning factors that led to him being suspected of mass murder, as his wife moved out and he became “lonely and sad”, though his family denies any notion that Shah was suicidal (Fedschun). The 53-year-old pilot was reportedly clinically depressed, which was what gave authorities the suspicion that he was suicidal and/or trying to kill a plane full of innocent people to remedy his depression (Bunyan). It’s stated that Zaharie Shah intentionally changed the direction of the plane, along with the speed, causing the plane to make an unexpected U-turn from its flight path and instead to fly over Malacca Strait (Bunyan). By using a grid of radio signals, investigators were also able to conclude that he also made a series of unprompted zig-zagging movements with the aircraft (Sun). This was theorized to have occurred so that Shah could avoid being tracked by authorities, yet it was never fully confirmed. The nice, passionate guy who was once respected by others for his talent in aviation was now being criticized and ridiculed by both the media and the public. All his past issues were being brought to the surface to be used as “evidence” for a possible reason as to why he would crash a plane with passengers he didn’t even know, yet all of it was pure speculation.
The “self-confessed aviation geek” was also accused of purposefully crashing the plane as a political ploy to get revenge on the jail sentencing of one of his in-laws, Anwar Ibrahim, who has since denied the report as a “smear campaign” (BBC News). Ibrahim initially denied even knowing the pilot, but then changed his story saying that Shah was actually related to his son’s in-laws and admitted to meeting Zaharie Shah on multiple occasions and that he was a “decent man” and a “close friend” of his from the opposition party (BBC News). Malaysian police chief, Abdul Hamid Bador, one of the investigators on the case of the missing flight, has informed the media there was “no evidence of Zaharie’s involvement” and that the “plane’s disappearance [is] still a mystery” (Fedschun).
Conspiracies
What was the plane that disappeared during a standard flight in 2014? Where did it come from and where was it scheduled to go before it vanished into thin air? This mysterious plane operated like any other plane in 2014, taking off with its patient 227 passengers and 12 trustworthy flight crew members (McMichael). The plane, called Malaysian Flight 370, was an airplane originating from the country Malaysia. It was scheduled to fly a standard flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8th, yet the determined pilots never got to land the aircraft safely on the ground at the expected timestamp (History.com).
Prior to liftoff, nothing seemed “out of the ordinary”: the brakes were working correctly and there were no leaks in the oxygen supply for the cabin on the plane (History.com). Most importantly, no mechanical errors were located at the time. However, the possibility that a mechanical error within the aircraft became increasingly relevant as the investigators went through all the possible reasons that could cause the disappearance of an entire airplane and all of its (about) 250 passengers.
The Malaysian Flight took off promptly at 12:41am local time and reached a cruising altitude of 35,000ft at 1:01am (Gregersen). Not long after this, the suspicious activity began. The communications system that transmitted information about the plane’s progress sent its last transmissions at 1:07am and was then turned off (Gregersen). At 1:19, the cockpit relayed the message, “Good night Malaysian three seven zero,” making it seem as if nothing was out of the ordinary (History.com). But, with no sign of the plane even long after the scheduled landing time, Malaysia Airlines announced the plane missing, leaving people dumbfounded and confused as to the whereabouts of the people who boarded that plane confident, and boldly assuming that they would make it to Beijing (History.com). However, the mysterious flight had other plans.
Theories started to arise about the cause of the disappearance, such as accusations of terrorism, which were soon dismissed due to lack of evidence when further investigated (History.com). Thoughts of purposeful pilot’s suicide was also a contending option, but that too was dismissed as there was no substantial evidence pointing to that option (Gregersen). However, recent studies from British expert, Richard Godfrey, are bringing this conclusion back into the list reasons behind the plane’s disappearance due to Godfrey’s opinion that pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah “decided to divert his aircraft and make it disappear in one of the remotest places in the world,” or better known as the Indian Ocean (Goodall). Despite that claim, the most likely option based on past studies is that the plane experienced some sort of mechanical malfunction that caused the plane to crash midway through the flight. Just because there weren’t any errors prior to liftoff, doesn’t mean than a worker didn’t overlook a small crack or hole, or that the plane hit something midair that caused a malfunction to occur. There are many ways that a plane can experience issues, which was why a malfunction error was thought to be the most likely explanation. The truth of this mysterious plane still remains unknown seeing as the people are still missing crucial details, but regarding the flight as a “flight gone wrong” seems to be the one of the only known fact in the case.
Conclusion
Airplanes are designed to get its passengers from point A to point B safely and without issue or injury, but Malaysian Flight 370 somehow managed not to achieve any of those goals. Since the mysterious disappearance the plane on March 8th, 2014, multiple conspiracy theories have surfaced to satisfy the need for a solid answer to give the public:
1. Was the plane hijacked by terrorists?
2. Did the pilots commit mass suicide with all of the passengers?
3. Was there a mechanical error in the plane itself?
After assessing the information on how Malaysian Flight 370 managed to vanish into thin air, and after looking into each conspiracy theory, evidence concludes that the plane experienced a mechanical malfunction during their flight that caused the aircraft to crash into the water and seemingly disappear from existence.
Works Cited
BBC News. “Who Are the Pilots of Flight MH370?” BBC News, 27 Mar. 2014, www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26628684.
Bunyan, Rachael. “MH370 Pilot ‘carefully Planned’ His Flight Path to Avoid Leaving Clues, New Research Claims.” Mail Online, Daily Mail, 7 May 2021, www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9550803/MH370-pilot-carefully-planned-flight-path-avoid-leaving-clues-new-research-claims.html
Fedschun, Travis. “Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Pilot Suspected by ‘top Levels’ of Mass Murder-Suicide, Ex-Aussie PM Says.” Fox News, 19 Feb. 2020, www.foxnews.com/world/malaysia-airlines-flight-370-pilot-suspected-mass-suicide-government-australiam-pm-plane.
Goodall, Hamish. “Expert Claims to Have FOUND MH370 in Major Missing Plane Breakthrough.” 7NEWS, 30 Nov. 2021, 7news.com.au/sunrise/on-the-show/expert-claims-to-have-found-mh370-in-major-missing-plane-breakthrough-c-4765991.
Gregersen, Erik. “Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Disappearance | Description & Facts.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 2014, www.britannica.com/event/Malaysia-Airlines-flight-370-disappearance.
History.com Editors. “Malaysia Airlines Flight Vanishes with More than 200 People Aboard.” HISTORY, 5 Mar. 2020, www.history.com/this-day-in-history/malaysia-airlines-flight-vanishes-with-more-than-200-people-aboard.
McMichael, Carie. “The Disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.” Missing Person Investigator | Thomas Lauth, 11 Oct. 2021, www.lauthmissingpersons.com/the-disappearance-of-malaysia-airlines-flight-370.
Sun, The. “Engineer Says Doomed MH370 Plane ‘Flew in Circles for 20 Mins before Vanishing.’” New York Post, 10 Nov. 2021, nypost.com/2021/11/10/engineer-says-doomed-mh370-plane-flew-in-circles-for-20-mins-before-vanishing.