We’d probably never know what really happened onboard Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370. The plane carrying 239 people onboard had mysteriously disappeared from the radar without warning, after taking off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing on March 8, 2014. It has been almost two years now, but even after sweeping every possible part of the ocean where the Boeing 777 could have been, the greatest mystery of this Millenium will probably stay just that.
In a three nation joint search which was conducted by Australia, China and Malaysia, the authorities involved have said, “Despite every effort using the best science available, the search has not been able to locate the aircraft.” They added, “Accordingly, the underwater search for MH370 has been suspended. The decision to suspend the underwater search has not been taken lightly nor without sadness.”
The $160 Million joint search was called off, after sweeping a 120,000 square kilometer area off the Australian coast. From the very moment the world started looking for the plane, we’ve been trying to locate it, based on theories and calculations, in the absence of any scientific data. However, in July 2015, the plane’s wing flap was found off the coast of Madagascar, confirming that the plane was indeed in the Indian Ocean. Since then, more than 20 items belonging to the plane have washed ashore on various islands dotted on the Indian Ocean. However, the main wreckage, black boxes and data recorders are still out there somewhere.
Since the search began soon after the plane vanished, it has been a journey full of false leads. From underwater signals which were wrongly thought to be coming from the plane’s Black Boxes. Debris which turned out to be trash and an large object on the seafloor, which was just an old shipwreck. There were even initial murmurs about the Plane being spotted on an American base, located on an island in the Indian Ocean. Several others thought it was hijacked and flown towards Europe, while some thought it was abducted by Aliens. In the absence of solid leads, investigators relied largely on an analysis of transmissions between the plane and a satellite to narrow down the jet’s location on Earth – a technique never previously used to find an aircraft.
The three nation search will be suspended once the current search zone has been exhausted, unless new evidence emerges which is precise of the plane’s location. And even in this day and age, since there is no existing technology that can tell investigators exactly where the plane is, it will in all probability be a curtain call for what has been the most expensive and complex search in aviation history.
