Lost Plane, where is MH370?

Malaysia Airline flight MH370 was scheduled to fly from KUL to PEK (IATA designation). On March 8th, the Boing 777-200ER left Kuala Lumpur International airport but never arrived to Beijing Capital international airport! At 17:20 UTC, less than one hour from takeoff, the plane disappeared (or I should say vanished). How an airplane carrying 12 crew members, and 277 passengers vanish just like that?

Until the time of writing this article, lots of stories, analysis, scenarios, etc. were presented, discussed and debated about the MH370 mysterious disappearance but none of them is proven right yet. As in any plane accident the hijacking, terrorism, suicide pilot, equipment malfunction, oxygen deprivation, Lithium-ion batteries fire in the cargo compartment, even the potential of staged bomb in the fruit package was discussed but yet no one scenario is holding water.

The search and rescue and then search mission launched by 22 different nations become the largest in the history, carried by 22 nation’s navies was initiated in the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea, extended within few days to Strait of Malacca and Andaman Sea then the focus moved to the southern part of Indian Ocean, yet no one evidence about the mysterious plane.

Malaysian government on March 24th confirmed and concluded beyond any reasonable doubt that the aircraft had gone down in the southern part of Indian Ocean. In fact, they sent a “text massage” to the relatives of the passengers and crew members about their conclusion! That is called “best usage of wireless and communication tools”. Many satellites, from different countries, using different technologies pointed to different locations on different occasions and reported different types of debris, but yet there is no one material evidence about what happened to MH370.

Is this possible? Just to refocus your attention, we are not talking about a homebuilt small machine get lost in forest fire. It is a Boing 777-200ER which is one of the most sophisticated machine in the civil aviation, or that what we have been told.

Few days after the plane disappearance two men identified on the manifest, an Austrian and Italian, had reported their passport stolen in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Interpol stated that both passports were listed in their database of lost and stolen passports, and that no check had been made against the database. It was reported that an Iranian had ordered the cheapest tickets to Europe via telephone in Bangkok, Thailand. The two passengers were later identified as Iranian men, who had entered Malaysia on 28 February using valid Iranian passports. The head of Interpol said the organization was “inclined to conclude that it was not a terrorist incident”. So the scenario of possible passenger involvement was ruled out.

Police searched the homes of the pilot and co-pilot, on suspicion that those in the cockpit had been responsible for the aircraft’s disappearance. However, no evidence had emerged to support this theory. After the FBI reconstructed the deleted data from the pilot’s home computer, the Malaysian government spokesman indicated that “nothing sinister” had been found on it.

There were stories about the pilot inviting girls and hosting them in the cockpit. While such events reflected how the pilot was irresponsible and should have been disciplined, Malaysian airlines did nothing and allowed the same pilot to keep flying with no evidence of disciplinary action, or at least that what we have been told.

Malaysian airlines officials did not disclosed its cargo manifest, as Malaysian police are conducting their own investigations. They said only that the aircraft was carrying 3 to 4 tonnes of mango and said that nothing transported was dangerous. Then, they confirmed that potentially flammable batteries identified as Lithium-ion were on board, adding that, all cargo was “packed as recommended by the ICAO”, checked several times, and deemed to meet regulations.

The aircraft left Kula Lumpur international airport at 14:41 UTC on March 7th. It climbed to its assigned cruise altitude of 35,000 feet and was traveling at 471 konts true airspeed when it ceased all communications, and the transponder signal was lost. Military tracking shows that the aircraft descended as low as 12,000 feet after taking a sharp turn toward the Strait of Malacca.

MH370 has become the 2014 aviation mystery and the time window for finding its black box is closing. Malaysian government confirmed that they will not stop looking for their airplane and the world is waiting for final closure of the lost plane.