Missing Flight MH370, Part 1: Chronology & Crew

Martin Dolan, former Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief: “The first thought is not ‘what happened?’ It’s ‘are there people still alive and can we do something about that?’”

Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 went missing March 8th, 2014. Martin Dolan (quoted above) is the former ATSB chief, who led the initial search for the flight. I’m here to put together every single piece of information I could find regarding this flight, and there is a lot of it. This article will include the chronology of events, crew members, and the aviation and oceanography experts who have been working on locating the missing plane. I will be focusing on facts, but I will also cover the theories that have emerged regarding the disappearance of the flight in part two. These are speculative, as I believe some of these do not take into account all of the facts. The theories border everything from government conspiracy to accidents, hijacking, and terrorism.

On March 8th, 2014, Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 departed from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at local time 00:42, 42 minutes after midnight, on its way to Beijing, China. The Boeing 777–200 is equipped with two rolls Royce engines and is piloted by Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, who has 18,000 hours of flying experience. He was also a flight instructor for Malaysian airlines. And First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, who has 2,700 hours of flying experience, but only thirty-nine hours on this type of aircraft. This was his first time as first officer on this type of aircraft.

This flight included 10 cabin crew members and 227 passengers, for a total of 239 on board.

The passengers included: 153 Chinese, 38 Malaysians, 6 Australians, 4 French, 3 Americans, 2 Canadians, plus 21 additional that have not been released.

This was a regularly scheduled daily flight, which would take approximately six and a half hours, and this flight was scheduled on-time for take-off. The aircraft tanks were filled with 49 tons of kerosene, which should allow it to fly for up to eight hours in normal flight conditions.

However, this flight would never make it to its destination. But it would remain in the air for approximately six hours.

This episode will feature a variety of people and much of the information has come from them, including part two when we get to the theories. These people include:

· Former ATSB Chief who led the initial search for MH370: Martin Dolan

· Air crash investigator from Canada: Larry Vance

· Aviation expert from America and global air safety specialist: John Cox

· Leading coastal oceanographer, highly versed in the Western Australian coast in terms of wind and wave climate, ocean currents, and sea level variability: Charitha Pattiaratchi

· Senior Boeing 777 Pilot and Instructor: Simon Hardy

· Former director of the French Bureau of Investigations and Analysis on civil aviation: Jean-Paul Troadec

· Former investigator for the National Transport Safety Board: Bob Macintosh

· And former pilot and flight instructor for Air France: Gerard Feldzer

Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah had ordered enough fuel for the plane to fly for about seven and a half hours, well over the time it would take the land. It is normal for commercial planes however to carry additional fuel, usually 30 to 45 mins extra in case of a variety of factors including circling before landing at their destination. Two extra hours considered is excessive.

At 1:07 AM, the crew confirmed their ascent and stabilized at 35,000 feet.

The one major inconsistency stated in the Malaysian report, is that whoever is on the radio did not repeat the assigned radio frequency during his last verbal communication, just before the transponders shut off.

Air-Ground Communication, Lumpur Radar: “Malaysia three-seven-zero, contact Ho Chi Minh one-two-zero-niner, have a good night.”

Flight MH370: “Have a good night, Malaysian three-seven-zero.”

It was expected for the pilot to repeat one-two-zero-niner, standard procedure for clear radio communications, telling dispatch that he understood the radio frequency given. A few minutes prior, the captain had done just that immediately after take-off.

Air-Ground Communication, Approach Radar: “Malaysian three-seven-zero, contact Lumpur radar one-three-two-six, good night.”

Flight MH370: “Night. One-three-two-six, Malaysian three-seven-zero.”

Unfortunately, we may never know if this was a mistake… or not. This is the last verbal communication from the flight, and the captain’s wife believes that this is her husband’s voice.

However, something to note, as much as it is usually required for pilots to relay back the same information to confirm they heard it correctly, veteran pilots do not always do this, especially if they take these flights frequently.

ACARS is the aircraft communications addressing and reporting system, which transmits short messages between the aircraft and the ground station. ACARS transmitted a message at approximately 1:07AM. This message was the last one received from MH370. These messages determine the best means of communications for the aircraft, just like a cellphone does when connecting automatically to 5G or Wi-Fi. These messages are automatically transmitted every 30 minutes. They also contain information about fuel levels, which indicated at that time the aircraft still had 43.8 tons of kerosene left, enough to last more than seven hours at their current speed in normal conditions.

The flight controller in Kuala Lumpur advised MH370 to contact Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, as it is clearing Malaysian airspace and is due to enter Vietnamese air space. The transponder dropped from civilian radar one minute and 43 seconds later, at 1:19AM. There are two transponders on this aircraft, and this would mean that one of the two transponders might not have just simply malfunctioned but may have been turned off manually.

The aircraft continued to be tracked by military radar, which does not rely on the transponders for location, but uses reflectors to track the aircraft. This type of radar determines the direction and distance of the aircraft, because the short radio waves behave like a search light when emitted from the reflector of the radar set’s antenna.

The fact that the flight had been recovered on military radar was critical, but that information was not released to the public immediately. It is believed that this information was withheld, because the Malaysian government does not want to reveal what they do or do not monitor. That is considered confidential information.

Malaysian authorities would begin their search after sunrise that same day, March 8th, near the location where the last verbal communication took place. The search would begin in the Gulf of Thailand and would stretch further north towards the South China Sea. This initial search turned up nothing, lasting a total of four days, before the Malaysian prime minister at the time, Najib Razak, came forward. “The Royal Malaysian Air Force’s primary radar data showed that an aircraft, which was believed but not confirmed, to be MH370 did indeed turn back.”

On March 8th, 2014, at 7:30AM, Malaysian Airlines made a public statement about the flight losing contact with air traffic control nearly five hours earlier.

The families of the missing were not formally contacted about the disappearance until late in the afternoon of that same day, and most of them by that point had heard about the missing flight due to the media.

Australia, New Zealand, and the United States took to the air and sea with vessels to search for any wreckage. The Chinese deployed satellites to search the area as well, to search for debris and fuel on the surface of the water. They did locate spills of fuel in the sea, however ships lose fuel in the sea, so it was never determined if any of that evidence belonged to MH370.

With this information, including the previous information about military radar tracking, four days after the flight went missing, it was determined that this plane made a slight turn to the right and a long narrow turn to the left, nearly making a full U-turn in the sky. After this, the aircraft then turned right, heading west-northwest, towards the Strait of Malacca. This area of the sea is separated between Thai and Malaysian authorities, who each believed that the aircraft belonged to the other country, so neither intervened.

The plane soon made its way back towards Malaysia and turned right near the island of Penang and continued in this direction until it dropped from radar once again. This is where each country made a critical mistake: if the aircraft wasn’t considered a threat, there wouldn’t have been a reason to intervene. But we still need to know why it is there, especially if it is not communicating. Security should have been on alert, concerned about the aircraft.

The SATCOM terminal inside the aircraft established a connection with a ground station in Perth, Australia, which maintained record of the traffic between the satellite and MH370. Three minutes after the flight disappeared over the Andaman Sea, it requested to log back online. It reconnected and was not disrupted again until nearly six hours later. This is when the flight is presumed to have crashed or ran out of fuel and subsequently crashed. Yes, those two scenarios are different, and we will go into more detail about these in part two, as these different scenarios do affect the search area for the flight.

At 2:22AM, the flight officially left Malaysian radar range. At 2:37AM, the flight changed course again to abruptly turn left and head south towards the Indian Ocean. This was the last official location. By this point, the passengers and crew would have known something was wrong, regardless of what might have been happening in the cockpit.

Inmarsat, located in London, uses a handshake signal that comes from the plane to the satellite about every hour. Throughout the night, the aircraft responded to the satellite’s handshake, leaving behind information about its last locations. These messages are typically only meant for the aircraft manufacturer to monitor the engines. The last signal was received at 8:19AM. Inmarsat knew exactly where this particular satellite was in the sky and used that information to determine where the plan could have been.

The data also concluded that the plane was on autopilot. It doesn’t mean the pilot was not in the cockpit, as during normal flight conditions, planes are piloted on autopilot for much of the flight, depending of course on weather and traffic in the sky. After analyzing the signals from the plane, Inmarsat determined the most likely position of the last known location of the aircraft. This is where seven rings of possible location were discovered, and the satellite determined the aircraft to be somewhere along one of those seven rings.

After analyzing the information, Inmarsat determined a 2,000-kilometer crescent of the outer most ring, just west of Australia in the southern Indian Ocean. Unfortunately, this is a dangerous part of the Indian Ocean.

Martin Dolan: “All we knew was there was this arc and somewhere along it was where the aircraft’s flight ended.”

Inmarsat says they can tell us the most likely area that the aircraft could be, but unfortunately, they cannot tell us the exact location to look.

The ACARS system on the aircraft was also switched off. This isn’t something easy to do like pushing a button. Someone has to access this system using a keypad manually and click through a series of tabs to reach the screen to turn off the system. However, this doesn’t have to be someone who is readily knowledgeable about aircrafts. This kind of information is all available on YouTube.

Some of the information relayed from the aircraft indicated that it reportedly reached 45,000 feet. This level of flight is not authorized, as it is nearly impossible for a plane to do unless the engines are at full throttle, especially with a plane that large, carrying all of those passengers and cargo. Not only that, but the air is very thin, and the possibility of stalling at that altitude is very high. This type of aircraft typically only reaches 40,000 feet when authorized, and the maximum operational altitude is 43,000 feet. The only acceptable reasons why an aircraft of this type would climb to this level of flight would be to avoid a storm or to extinguish a fire by depriving it of oxygen. This usually results in the aircraft stalling and immediately losing altitude. This is a theory that will be discussed in part two.

The investigation shifted towards Australia, and the Australian government took over. However, this area of the southern Indian Ocean is so remote, and so dangerous, that it took six days just to arrive.

Charitha Pattiaratchi: “It is a very hostile area. There are lots of waves and wind, so it is rough… It took ten days before the search actually came to this part. In those ten days, there were two cyclones, so there was a lot of mixing and a lot of very big seas, which would have also broken up part of the stuff we are talking about.”

By this point, it had now been ten days since the flight went missing, and the odds of locating any wreckage or evidence of a crash was slim. A surface search was conducted through April 28th, covering over 4.5 million square-kilometers, however no wreckage or evidence of a crash was found.

Satellite images from the southern Indian ocean were taken in as possible evidence from March 2014. Some of the images look as if some manmade objects were floating on the surface. A modern-day satellite can detect an object the size of a football. However, if you’ve ever looked at satellite images of an ocean or even any distance above the water, the sun during the day and the stars at night reflect off of the water, causing a variety of shapes.

Even after some of these images were enhanced, there is no proof that any of the images taken include evidence of an aircraft. And after a surface search of the area, no debris was found. Unfortunately, we don’t know if the images taken really do contain possible debris.

Bob Macintosh: “A large aircraft like this has created some debris somewhere; we just haven’t found it.”

A satellite image of the air was taken on March 8th, 2014, which includes a contrail within the general vicinity of where the aircraft may have crashed. However, after review of this image, the conclusion reached is that the contrail is nothing more than a shadow or a natural break in the cloud formation.

On March 10th, an emergency press conference was held at 10PM. Families and the press weren’t notified of this conference until one hour prior. Due to the time of day, this conference was considered very significant, as people were anxious to hear what Malaysian authorities wanted to say. It was apparently urgent enough that it couldn’t wait until the next morning.

Five minutes before the press conference, a text message was sent to the families of those who were lost, simply stating, “Malaysian Airlines deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board have survived. As you will hear in the next hour from the Malaysian Prime Minister, we must now accept all evidence suggests the plane went down in the southern Indian ocean.”

Unfortunately, Malaysian authorities didn’t say anything of great significance, simply telling the public and the families, “We are looking at every aspect of what could happen on this, and once we get any report from them, we will inform all of you.”

Many other conferences just like this one held no additional information to help the families of those lost.

On March 17th, 42 ships and 39 aircrafts from different countries searched a 90,000 square-kilometer area.

Flight recorders are equipped not only with a cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder but also with an underwater locator beacon or an underwater acoustic beacon. Underwater locator beacons are triggered once submerged in water and begin emitting an ultrasonic pulse every second at about 37.5 kilohertz. Now, I say “about” because this frequency will change if the impact with the water is forceful enough. The battery on these underwater beacons lasts between 30 and 40 days. There were multiple signals located down to 3000 meters within this frequency. A submersible was sent down to search the area.

This aircraft was equipped with two black boxes: one which records sounds in the cockpit and what the pilots were doing in the cockpit, such as what switches and buttons are being touched, and one which records the aircraft’s operational data. After 40 days of searching in extremely poor weather, nothing had been found.

Martin Dolan: “Where do we search? We search in the area that the aircraft is most likely to be. It’s not the place where the aircraft is guaranteed to be, but by our best assessment on all the information that was available to us at the time, where the aircraft is most likely to be, that’s where we concentrate our resources.”

On March 25th, 200 people in Malaysia took to the streets to protest the zero information that they had been given about the flight. The authorities had failed to give the people any real information about the flight and had either ignored questions or not answered them completely, but instead, answering around the direct question.

Krishnamoorthy Muthaly is a journalist based in Kuala Lumpor: “They are not good in public speaking. They are not good in communicating. They are not good in saying things right and truthful. Even the way they handle the people — they failed to use the local Chinese among the crowd to talk to the Chinese. They went and spoke in English… Some people, high-level officials — were chased away. Bottles were thrown in Beijing when they appeared before the Chinese relatives.”

July 19th, 2015, a group of people on the island of Reunion, a small island to the east of Madagascar, found a two-meter-long object that was later identified as the right flaperon of an aircraft. This has been one of the most well-known objects located that is confirmed to be from flight MH370, using dates and serial numbers found on the flaperon.

Reunion island is approximately 4000 kilometers west of the Indian Ocean, but scientists have determined that this is a reasonable location for debris to be found, given windspeed and oceanic drift within this 26-month period. There are many different types of software that are used to determine the location of things like plastic pollution, marine debris, and oil spills. This is how we have determined that flight MH370 must have crashed somewhere in the southern Indian ocean.

Once this flaperon was located, multiple searches were done on shorelines of Madagascar and southeastern Africa. Thirty-two objects in total were found, however, only three of them are confirmed to have come from MH370. Three likely, eight highly likely, one almost certain, and eleven have remained unidentified. No traces of an explosion and only one unidentifiable object had evidence of a fire.

The initial search was suspended January 17th, 2017, at which point 120,000 square kilometers had been searched, not simply only the surface of the ocean but also the ocean floor.

Ocean Infinity resumed the search thereafter but after just over a year of searching, no additional evidence has been found. Ocean Infinity was found in July of 2017, and in October of that same year, began its search for MH370, north of the area previously searched. The company would only receive payment if the flight was located, and they searched approximately 1,100 square kilometers per day, an area partially claimed by the drift analysis data from Professor Pattiarachi, who also stated, “It took 100 years almost to find Titanic. And there’s, you know — we’re now finding World War I and World War II submarines and shipwrecks, and so there’s always hope.”

It took two years to find Air France Fight 447, but we did eventually find it. On May 29th, 2018, Ocean Infinity had recovered high quality data from over 112,000 square kilometers of ocean floor, and unfortunately stated that they would have to suspend their search for the flight.

Two years ago, on the eighth anniversary of the missing plane, the CEO of Ocean Infinity, Oliver Plunkett, stated that they plan to continue the search for the missing flight. They have completed construction on 23 new autonomous robotic ships. He says they did plan on continuing the search in 2020 but were delayed due to the pandemic. They have since created these new submersibles which should be ready to deploy this year.

Ocean Infinity has not made an official statement saying when the search will once again begin, but hope has not been completely lost for those who are still trying to find out what happened. I’m personally hoping that Ocean Infinity will make an announcement soon on any updates they have for the continuation of the search for MH370.

John Cox: “When you look at it and you go back into the history of commercial jet aviation, with fair paying passengers onboard, we’ve always found the airplane. To have one that can’t find is one of aviation’s — probably aviation’s greatest mystery, and aviation does not do well with mysteries, and that’s why so much effort has been put into it… If we’re not looking, we can’t find it. To just give up at this point, I’m not prepared to do that.”