The Vanishing of Flight 370

Summary

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished in 2014 with 239 people onboard during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Despite an extensive search, the plane's disappearance remains a mystery. The search, initially focused around the South China Sea, expanded to the Indian Ocean following military radar data. Satellite communications data provided clues but no definitive answers. Debris found across the Indian Ocean confirmed the crash but offered little insight into the cause. Theories range from mechanical failure to hijacking, but without the wreckage, the true fate of MH370 and those onboard remains unknown, making it one of aviation's greatest mysteries.

Takeaways

• 🛫 Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a Boeing 777, vanished from radar screens less than an hour after takeoff from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.
• 🔴 The disappearance led to the most expensive search in aviation history, initially focused in the South China Sea and later expanded to the Indian Ocean based on military radar data.
• 📡 Satellite communication data played a crucial role in the search, revealing the aircraft's unexpected route changes and helping to narrow down potential crash sites in the southern Indian Ocean.
• 🛩 Over 16 months later, a flaperon from the aircraft was discovered on Réunion Island, marking the first tangible evidence of a crash in the Indian Ocean.
• 🔍 Additional debris found along African shores and analyzed satellite imagery provided further clues but did not lead to the location of the main wreckage.
• 🔮 Investigations into the cause of the crash considered possibilities such as a fire, electrical malfunction, or a deliberate act, but no conclusive evidence was found.
• 🚨 Theories about the disappearance range from hijacking and pilot suicide to mechanical failure and external interference, but none have been definitively proven.
• 💻 Analysis of the captain's flight simulator suggested a possible premeditated route into the Indian Ocean, but this evidence is not conclusive.
• 📲 The co-pilot's phone briefly connected with a cell tower near Penang, adding a layer of mystery to the investigation.
• 🗽 Despite extensive searches covering over 120,000 km2 of the ocean floor, the final resting place of Flight 370 remains unknown, leaving the incident an enduring mystery.

Q & A

What was the destination of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370?

The destination of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was Beijing, China, from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

How many people were on board Flight 370?

There were 239 people on board Flight 370, including the captain, first officer, ten cabin crew members, and 227 passengers.

What happened to Flight 370 after it was instructed to contact air traffic control in Ho Chi Minh City?

One minute and forty-three seconds after being instructed to contact air traffic control in Ho Chi Minh City, Flight 370 suddenly vanished from radar screens at Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh, and Bangkok.

What technology was used to track Flight 370 after it disappeared from radar?

After disappearing from radar, Flight 370 was tracked using satellite communications (SATCOM) data, which provided insights into its possible location based on the distance between the satellite and the aircraft at the time of transmissions.

What evidence suggests that Flight 370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean?

Evidence suggesting that Flight 370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean includes the analysis of satellite communications, which indicated the most probable origin of the final transmission to be along an arc in the southern Indian Ocean, and the discovery of a flaperon on Réunion Island that belonged to Flight 370.

What were some of the theories considered to explain the disappearance of Flight 370?

Theories included a possible hijacking, fire on board due to lithium-ion batteries or an electrical malfunction, a sudden or gradual loss of cabin pressure leading to crew incapacitation, or deliberate actions by one of the pilots.

Was there any evidence found to support a fire or explosion on board Flight 370?

No evidence of an explosion or fire was found on any of the debris tested, except for three small burn marks on one of the unidentifiable items, which does not conclusively support a fire on board.

What was discovered in the flight simulator of Flight 370's captain?

A search of the captain's flight simulator uncovered a simulated flight path that ended in the southern Indian Ocean, which some have considered as evidence of premeditation.

What challenges did the search operation for Flight 370 face?

Challenges included the remote location of the search area in the southern Indian Ocean, which took six days to reach, and the vast size of the search area, which extended over 4,500,000 km2.

What remains a mystery about Flight 370?

The final resting place of Flight 370, the exact reason for its crash, and the cause of its diversion and disappearance remain a mystery due to the absence of the wreckage and limited evidence.

Outlines

00:00

✈️ Departure and Disappearance

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, bound from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, took off with 239 people aboard. Less than an hour into its flight, after a routine handover from Malaysian to Vietnamese air traffic control, the Boeing 777 vanished from radar. This sudden disappearance suggested a malfunction or deliberate deactivation of the transponders. Despite extensive attempts to contact the aircraft, it remained missing, triggering the most expensive search in aviation history, initially focused on the South China Sea and the Gulf of Thailand.

05:02

🔍 Expanding the Search and Discoveries

Following military radar data revealing an unexpected deviation from the flight path, the search expanded to the Strait of Malacca and the Indian Ocean. Satellite communications data played a crucial role, indicating the plane continued flying for several hours towards the southern Indian Ocean. Despite extensive search efforts covering millions of square kilometers, initial searches yielded no trace of MH370. However, more than a year later, debris confirmed to be from MH370 was found on Réunion Island, providing tangible evidence of a crash in the Indian Ocean.

10:02

🕵️ Investigating the Mystery

Analysis of debris and satellite data offered clues but no definitive answers. The debris showed no signs of an explosion or significant fire, with the exception of minor burn marks on one piece. The exhaustive search of the ocean floor and continued analysis did not conclusively reveal the aircraft's final resting place. Various theories emerged, including a possible cabin depressurization, hijacking, and even deliberate actions by the pilots, but the precise cause and nature of the flight's deviation remained unexplained.

15:07

🧩 Theories and Speculation

Speculation about the captain's involvement intensified after reports of a simulated flight path similar to MH370's presumed path found on his simulator. Despite various theories suggesting hijacking, mechanical failure, or even a deliberate act by the captain, no conclusive evidence has been presented. The investigation uncovered no significant personal, financial, or professional issues that would point to a motive for a deliberate act by the crew.

20:07

🔎 Ongoing Mystery and Conclusions

Despite the recovery and analysis of multiple pieces of debris and exhaustive search efforts, the final report could not definitively explain the loss of communications or the flight's deviation. Speculation continues, ranging from potential hijacking scenarios to mechanical failures and even conspiracies involving remote hijacking or military involvement. Without the wreckage, the cause of the crash and many details about the flight's final hours remain undetermined, leaving MH370's disappearance one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history.

Keywords

💡Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370) refers to the passenger flight that vanished on March 8, 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China. The disappearance of MH370, with 239 people on board, became one of the greatest aviation mysteries in history. The script outlines the flight's departure, its sudden disappearance from radar, and the subsequent massive search and investigation efforts. This case has sparked extensive international interest and numerous theories regarding its disappearance.

💡Transponder

A transponder is an electronic device in an aircraft that transmits a response when it receives a radio-frequency interrogation. Aircraft transponders provide information such as the aircraft's identity and altitude to air traffic controllers. The disappearance of MH370 from radar screens suggests that its transponders stopped functioning, either due to a malfunction or being manually turned off, highlighting a critical moment in the timeline of the flight's disappearance.

💡Satellite Communications (SATCOM)

SATCOM refers to the use of satellites to transmit and receive communication signals. In the context of MH370, the aircraft's SATCOM system played a crucial role in the investigation. After the plane vanished from radar, its SATCOM terminal unexpectedly re-established connection with a satellite, providing vital data through automatic 'handshakes' that helped narrow down the aircraft's possible location in the southern Indian Ocean. This information became a cornerstone in the search for MH370.

💡Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is mentioned as the final area where MH370 is believed to have crashed, based on satellite data and flight path analysis. The vastness and remoteness of this part of the Indian Ocean presented significant challenges to the search effort. Despite extensive searches covering millions of square kilometers, the aircraft's wreckage has not been fully recovered, underscoring the difficulty of the search operations in such a remote location.

💡Debris

Debris refers to the remains of the aircraft that were eventually found and identified as belonging to MH370. The discovery of a flaperon on Réunion Island in July 2015 provided the first tangible evidence that MH370 had crashed in the Indian Ocean. Subsequent findings of other debris along African coastlines further supported this conclusion. The analysis of debris helped narrow down the search area and offered some closure to the families, albeit without solving the mystery of why and how the aircraft ended up there.

💡Search and Rescue Operations

Search and rescue operations for MH370 became the most expensive in aviation history, involving numerous countries and covering vast areas of the South China Sea, the Gulf of Thailand, the Strait of Malacca, the Andaman Sea, and the southern Indian Ocean. These operations highlight the international effort and collaboration in attempting to locate the missing aircraft and understand the circumstances of its disappearance.

💡Satellite Data Analysis

Satellite data analysis played a critical role in the MH370 investigation, utilizing 'handshakes' between the aircraft and a satellite to deduce possible final locations of the airplane in the southern Indian Ocean. This analysis helped shift the search area but also underscored the limitations of current technology and procedures in tracking and locating aircraft over oceans.

💡Pilot Suicide/Hijacking

Pilot suicide or hijacking is among the theories investigated in the disappearance of MH370. The script explores various pieces of evidence, including a flight simulator owned by the captain with a route similar to MH370's presumed path, raising suspicions of premeditation. This theory, like others, remains speculative without conclusive evidence, reflecting the complexity and ambiguity surrounding the case.

💡Underwater Locator Beacons

Underwater locator beacons are devices attached to aircraft flight recorders ("black boxes") that emit signals to aid in the detection of wreckage underwater. In the search for MH370, signals thought to be from these beacons were detected, leading to extensive underwater searches. Despite this effort, the main wreckage and black boxes were not found, demonstrating the challenges of locating objects in deep and vast oceanic waters.

💡Autopilot

Autopilot refers to a system used to control the trajectory of an aircraft without constant 'hands-on' control by human operators. In the context of MH370, it's speculated that after the initial deviation from its flight path, the aircraft could have continued flying on autopilot until it ran out of fuel and crashed into the Indian Ocean. This theory attempts to explain how the plane could have flown for hours without human intervention, emphasizing the role of automated systems in modern aviation.

Highlights

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanishes from radar screens, indicating both transponders ceased functioning or were manually deactivated.

The most expensive search in aviation history begins, initially focusing between the South China Sea and the Gulf of Thailand.

Malaysian military radar data reveals Flight 370 deviated from its flight path, suggesting manual control.

Analysis of satellite communications (SATCOM) data pinpoints Flight 370's final location along an arc in the southern Indian Ocean.

A flaperon discovered on Réunion Island provides tangible evidence of Flight 370's crash in the Indian Ocean.

Over 31 pieces of debris related to Flight 370 are found, with 18 items almost certain to have originated from the flight.

The underwater search, covering 120,000 km2 of seabed, is suspended in early 2017 after failing to locate the wreckage.

Flight 370's disappearance prompts theories ranging from hijacking to mechanical failure, but a conclusive cause remains undetermined.

Investigators believe Flight 370's SATCOM was manually disabled, indicating deliberate manipulation.

A simulated flight path found on the captain's flight simulator closely mirrors the presumed route of Flight 370, sparking suspicions.

Despite extensive searches, Flight 370's final resting place eludes detection, leaving its cause and location a mystery.

The Australian government takes charge of the search operation, focusing on the southern Indian Ocean.

Potential evidence of a crash, such as hydrophone recordings and satellite imagery, fails to conclusively locate Flight 370.

Ocean Infinity's renewed search effort also ends without finding Flight 370, highlighting the difficulties of deep-sea searches.

The mystery of Flight 370 continues to fuel speculation and investigation, underscoring the need for improved aviation safety and tracking.

Transcripts

At Kuala Lumpur International Airport, a Boeing 777 is preparing for departure.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is a daily passenger flight between Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Beijing, China.

Forty-two minutes past midnight, Flight 370 is given clearance to depart.

On board are Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid,

ten cabin crew members, and 227 passengers.

Less than an hour into the flight, the plane is cruising over the South China Sea at an altitude of 35,000 feet.

The night sky is clear and the weather is calm.

Flight 370 is then instructed to signal air traffic control in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

as it is about to enter Vietnamese airspace.

The flight controller in Kuala Lumpur says good night with no sign that anything should be amiss.

One minute and forty-three seconds later, the aircraft suddenly vanish from radar screens

at Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh, and Bangkok.

This form of positional tracking depends on a signal being emitted by one of two transponders

aboard the plane, and so its disappearance would suggest both transponders ceased to function,

or the system was manually deactivated by someone onboard.

All subsequent attempts to contact and ascertain the whereabouts of Flight 370 are unsuccessful.

The aircraft has seemingly vanished without a trace.

After missing its scheduled time of arrival in Beijing some four hours later,

Flight 370 is officially declared missing, and in the wake of that announcement,

the most expensive search effort in aviation history is about to commence.

The search was initially concentrated around the location of the flight's disappearance

between the South China Sea and the Gulf of Thailand.

The search area was soon expanded, however, after the Malaysian military disclosed additional information.

Unlike the radar system employed by Air Traffic Control, long-range military radar does not rely on transponders

but use reflectance to track the position of aerial targets.

A review of the data collected by the Malaysian military revealed that moments after contact

with Flight 370 was lost, the aircraft had deviated from its scheduled flight path

with a subtle turn to the right followed by a prolonged turn to the left.

The aircraft had then flown back towards and across the Malaysian peninsula

before turning right near the island of Penang.

It maintained this northwesterly heading until it escaped the radar's coverage.

Over the next few days, the Strait of Malacca, the Andaman Sea, and the Bay of Bengal

was scoured by a multinational fleet of aircraft and vessels, but there was no trace of Flight 370.

Meanwhile, investigators began to analyze the aircraft's satellite communication records.

Like all modern airliners, Flight 370 was equipped with a satellite communications terminal,

or SATCOM, to send and received transmissions to and from the ground.

Prior to departure, the SATCOM terminal had logged on to the satellite network

and established a connection with a ground station in Perth, Australia.

That station then maintained a detailed record of all the incoming and outgoing traffic

between it and Flight 370.

This is what it contained.

Prior to the flight's disappearance over the South China Sea,

everything appeared to be working as intended.

Then, at some point during this portion of the flight, the SATCOM link was severed.

For whatever reason, the terminal ceased to respond.

But three minutes after the flight vanished over the Andaman Sea

the terminal requested to log back on to the network.

The SATCOM link was successfully reestablished and was not disrupted again

until nearly six hours later when the flight is presumed to have crashed due to fuel exhaustion.

During these final hours, two attempts were made to contact the plane via satellite telephone.

Both calls were acknowledged by the SATCOM terminal and would've been routed to the cockpit,

yet they went unanswered.

The terminal had also responded to five automatic status requests.

In short, if the ground station had not heard from the aircraft in over an hour,

it would transmit a signal to confirm the terminal was still online.

While these transmissions did not contain any information about the flight's position,

investigators were able to measure the distance between the satellite and the aircraft

at the time of each transmission based on how long it took those transmissions

to be sent and received.

This generated seven rings of possible locations

from which seven of these transmissions are thought to have originated.

By taking fuel consumption, speed, and other factors into account,

flight path analysis indicated the most probable origin of the final transmission

to be somewhere along this arc in the southern Indian Ocean.

The search effort shifted accordingly, and as the region fell within the jurisdiction of Australia,

the Australian government took charge of the operation.

Over the next few weeks, the search area was progressively refined to account for oceanic drift

as well as improved estimations of the flight path.

But this part of the southern Indian Ocean is so remote it took six days just to get there.

A new fleet of aircraft and vessels gradually covered more than 4,500,000 km2 of ocean,

but Flight 370 was nowhere to be found.

If the impact with the ocean had been sufficiently forceful, it was possible the resulting sound

had been recorded by underwater listening devices known as hydrophones.

This possibility was investigated, and four hydroacoustic monitoring stations

had recorded something...

While the timing and direction of the sound were reasonably consistent

with the final satellite transmission, the estimated origin was not.

The sound was in all likelihood caused by nothing more than geological activity.

Flight 370 was also equipped with two underwater locator beacons

which had a battery life of some 40 days, and as the deadline approached in early April,

signals with a pulse and frequency somewhat similar to the signal emitted by the beacons

were detected at depths of up to 3,000 meters.

An autonomous submersible then spent weeks scanning the seafloor

where the signals had been detected, but no wreckage was ever found.

And nothing would be found until more than 16 months later when a discovery was made

on the opposite side of the Indian Ocean.

On the 29th of July, 2015, a group of people was cleaning up a beach in Réunion,

a small island to the east of Madagascar, when they stumbled upon this

2-meter-long metallic object covered in barnacles.

Aviation experts quickly identified the object as a section of an aircraft wing known as a flaperon.

Upon closer inspection, internal markings, including dates and serial numbers,

conclusively ascertained the flaperon belonged to Flight 370.

Even though Réunion Island is some 4,000 km west of the search area,

and more than a year had gone by since the flight disappeared,

the location was consistent with simulations of debris dispersal patterns.

There was now tangible evidence that Flight 370 had crashed somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

The discovery of the flaperon prompted numerous searches

along beaches and shorelines of southeastern Africa,

and at least 31 additional items of interest have since been recovered and examined.

Some of these items include:

A section of the outboard flap from the right wing.

A piece of cowling from one of the two engines.

A partial door from the nose landing gear.

A section of the vertical stabilizer.

And a mangled casing from one of the embedded headrest monitors.

Eighteen of these items were identified as either likely, highly likely, or almost certain

to have originated from Flight 370, whereas only three could be confirmed.

The remaining eleven could not be identified.

There were no traces of an explosion found on any of the debris tested

nor was there any evidence of a fire except for three small burn marks on one of the unidentifiable items.

The search for debris was further aided by Earth observation satellites.

Analyses of satellite imagery from March of 2014 uncovered a number of images which appeared

to feature man-made objects floating on or just below the surface in the southern Indian Ocean.

However, the images were not nearly sharp enough to resolve any identifiable markings,

and multiple searches notwithstanding, this debris was never recovered.

A satellite image taken mere hours after the final transmission,

also captured what appeared to be a contrail some distance away from the search area.

A later analysis, however, concluded it was most likely a shadow

from a somewhat linear cloud formation.

The underwater portion of the search continued for months and eventually years

before it was finally suspended in early 2017.

By which point some 120,000 km2 of seabed had been scrutinized.

The search effort was then resumed by an American salvage company known as Ocean Infinity,

but after more than a year of searching, they too came up emptyhanded.

Unless the final resting place of Flight 370 can be located,

it may be impossible to determine exactly why it crashed.

Nevertheless, there has been no shortage of theories.

On the day of the disappearance, two of the passengers raised suspicion as they had boarded the flight

with stolen passports which immediately prompted concerns of a hijacking.

But investigators were unable to link the two men to any terrorist organizations

and soon determined they had traveled under false identities because they were seeking asylum,

not due to any nefarious intent.

Similar suspicions were raised when one of the passengers were identified as a flight engineer

who might have possessed the necessary expertise to take control of a Boeing 777.

Apart from the 239 persons onboard, Flight 370 carried nearly 11 metric tons of cargo.

Among the items listed on the flight manifest was a shipment of lithium-ion batteries,

which lead some to suspect a fire might have broken out mid-flight.

For instance, the crash of UPS Airlines Flight 6 in September of 2010 was the result of a fire

that was ignited by a pallet of lithium-ion batteries.

Another potential source of ignition would be an electrical malfunction.

The crash of Swissair Flight 111 in September of 1998

is thought to have been caused by a fire within the electrical wiring above the cockpit.

The fire damaged and disabled multiple avionic systems, including the transponders and SATCOM.

In the case of Flight 370, the sudden loss of communication

and subsequent deviation from its scheduled flight path might have been a direct response to a fire.

The two pilots may have turned back towards Malaysia to attempt an emergency landing

at the nearest suitable airport.

But no such attempt was ever made.

Instead, Flight 370 kept going and remained aloft for another six hours.

Some have theorized the crew might have been incapacitated

by a sudden or gradual loss of cabin pressure.

For instance, when Helios Airways Flight 522 failed to pressurize in August of 2005,

the pilots quickly fell unconscious, yet the aircraft continued to fly on autopilot for more than two hours

until it ran out of fuel.

Airline pilots are of course trained for such an event.

In the event of cabin depressurization, an automatic system is designed to deploy oxygen masks

to give the pilots enough time to perform an emergency descent to a more breathable altitude.

The data recorded by the Malaysian military radar does indeed contain altitude information,

but it is highly inconsistent.

In fact, a Boeing 777 is incapable of performing the extreme altitude fluctuations recorded.

At one point the aircraft exceeded its maximum operating altitude by more than 15,000 feet

before making a 50,000 feet nosedive in less than a minute.

Attempts to recreate these maneuvers on a flight simulator were unsuccessful,

and thus the data was deemed inaccurate and unreliable.

If Flight 370 did loose cabin pressure at 35,000 feet

and the pilots were incapacitated before descending to a more oxygenated altitude,

it might explain why the aircraft remained aloft for as long as it did.

What is a bit more difficult to explain, however, are these alterations in heading.

Flight simulations have established the aircraft must have been under manual control

during the initial left turn as the bank angle, or inclination, of that turn,

was beyond the limits of the autopilot.

Subsequent turns, however, could have been either manual or automatic.

But for the autopilot to have made these course corrections, someone with the requisite knowledge

must have programmed it to do so.

The only other alternative is that the aircraft was in fact under manual control.

In late June of 2014, several news outlets reported that a special investigation

had identified the captain of Flight 370 as a prime suspect.

A search of the captain's home had uncovered a flight simulator

which supposedly contained a suspicious route which ended in the southern Indian Ocean.

At the time, there was no official acknowledgment that such a route had been recovered,

and a lengthy public report, issued by the Malaysian government in 2015,

made no mention of such a discovery.

Then, in 2016, confidential documents pertaining to a forensic examination

conducted by the Royal Malaysia Police in May of 2014 was leaked to the media.

These documents made it clear that such a route had not only been recovered but thoroughly examined.

Soon thereafter, the Malaysian government confirmed the existence of this simulated flight path

and this is what it looks like.

It should come as no surprise that many regard this as damning evidence of premeditation,

but according to investigators it is not quite so evident.

The data recovered consists of seven coordinates.

Two in Kuala Lumpur.

Two in the Strait of Malacca.

One in the Bay of Bengal.

And two in the southern Indian Ocean.

The data was reconstructed from a file that had been automatically generated and saved

by the simulation software a month before the incident.

However, it's not clear whether the coordinates originate from the same flight session.

In other words, it might not be correct to simply trace a continuous line

between these seven coordinates as they could be from separate sessions.

The forensic examination by the Royal Malaysia Police simply concluded:

"No activity captured conclusively indicate any kind of premeditated act

pertaining to the incident of MH370."

Even so, the similarities between this simulated route and the presumed route of Flight 370

directly influenced the search operation.

Australian investigators considered the possibility of someone

deliberately extending the range of the flight by gliding the aircraft after fuel exhaustion.

If so, the plane could have traveled an additional 200 kilometers.

Alternatively, the range could have been reduced by a controlled ditching prior to fuel exhaustion.

While ultimately deemed unlikely, these two scenarios did affect the search effort.

If the captain steered Flight 370 off-course with the intention of crashing

in a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean, his motive is an even greater mystery.

Zaharie Ahmad Shah was 53 and married with three children.

He had more than 18,000 hours of flight experience and a spotless track record.

Investigators found no evidence of financial issues

and his monthly expenses before the disappearance indicated nothing unusual.

He had no history of mental illness nor had he displayed any recent changes

in lifestyle or behavior.

He was raised on the island of Penang which has led some to speculate

the flight's second turn to the southwest of Penang was the captain getting a final view of his hometown.

Some believe a hijacking could have been politically motivated

as Zaharie was an avid supporter of a democratic opposition leader

who was sentenced to five years in prison mere hours before Flight 370 took off.

Others point to unconfirmed reports of marital issues, but this is contradicted by the official investigation

and disputed by family members.

The only real inconsistency noted by the final report

is that the captain failed to repeat the assigned radio frequency during the last verbal communication.

It would have been standard procedure to repeat the assigned frequency

as the captain had correctly done a few minutes prior.

Whether this omission is indicative of anything but a mistake is anyone's best guess.

By all accounts, Captain Zaharie was an affable and well-respected pilot

who was passionate about aviation as evident by the photos and videos he shared on social media.

Captain Zaharie: Hi everyone. This is a YouTube video that I've made

Captain Zaharie: as a community service.

The copilot was found to be even less conspicuous.

Fariq Abdul Hamid was only 27 and due to marry a fellow pilot.

He had nearly 3,000 hours of flight experience, although only 39 hours in this type of aircraft.

Much like Zaharie, Fariq had no financial, mental, or interpersonal issues of note,

nor was there any evidence of conflict between the two of them.

Some question the plausibility of a pilot-instigated hijacking

due to the apparent lack of interference by the other pilot.

Well, when Ethiopian Airlines Flight 702 was hijacked by the copilot in February of 2014,

he did so by merely waiting for the captain to take a bathroom break

before locking the cockpit door behind him.

The copilot was then free to divert the Italy-bound flight to Switzerland to seek asylum.

The only noteworthy piece of evidence in regards to the copilot of Flight 370 is his phone.

You see, when the confidential documents were leaked, they also confirmed another long-circulated rumor.

Namely, that a cellphone tower had briefly established a connection with an iPhone 5S

belonging to the copilot as Flight 370 approached the island of Penang.

According to investigators, it was not a phone call, as has been widely reported by the media,

but merely an automatic location signal.

Why this information was omitted from public reports, we may never know.

So what is one to make of all of this?

On the one hand, the simulated flight path seems suspicions.

On the other, it is difficult to cast any substantial doubt on either of the two pilots' character.

It is equally difficult to deny a hijacking is consistent with the available evidence.

Then again, we're missing some quite major and literal pieces of evidence.

The final report issued by the Malaysian government in 2018 could not attribute the loss of communication

nor diversion of Flight 370 to a malfunction.

Instead, it is believed that someone manually manipulated the aircraft and its systems.

For instance, investigators believe SATCOM was manually disabled

by a sudden and prolonged interruption of power.

Then, once power was restored, the terminal simply rebooted.

Likewise, the alterations in heading are believed to be the result of manual inputs.

With that being said, the uncertainty of these findings are repeatedly emphasized

due to the limited evidence available, and the report does never explicitly state the flight was hijacked.

In fact, no real conclusion is reached.

Both the Malaysian and Australian government agree that Flight 370 crashed in the southern Indian Ocean

but that the cause is indeterminable without a wreckage.

The location of which has managed to elude some of the foremost aviation experts in the world

as well as an impressive arsenal of cutting edge technology for more than half a decade.

Authors, aviation experts, and independent investigators have all chimed in to offer their own

thoughts and theories as to the nature of the crash and the location of the wreckage.

Some believe there was no crash but that the aircraft was shot down by an American naval base

in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

The satellite transmissions where then supposedly forged as part of a massive cover up.

Others believe the aircraft turned right towards India and traveled as far north as Kazakhstan

completely undetected.

Debris was then supposedly planted along shorelines of southeastern Africa

as part of a massive cover up.

Another theory suggest the aircraft was remotely hijacked and controlled by someone on the ground.

While Boeing and other companies have experimented with technology

that would allow for an aircraft to be remotely controlled,

no commercial airliner is known to be outfitted with such a system.

On the less conspiratorial side, the assumption that Flight 370 flew in a straight line

and at a constant speed after turning left towards the southern Indian Ocean

might simply be incorrect.

In early 2018, a French team of independent investigators proposed an alternate flight path

whereby an attempted landing on Christmas Island lead to a crash site much further north

than the region identified by the official investigation.

While a surface search of this area was conducted about a week after the disappearance,

the underwater phase never reached this far north.

As of the making of this video, the search operation has been suspended,

but there have been talks of potentially resuming the search.

For now, it seems, the vanishing of Flight 370 will remain a mystery.