Malaysia. The search for missing flight MH370 will resume

For over a decade, civilian and military investigators from several countries, experts, journalists, professional searchers and amateurs have been trying to solve this mystery. A Boeing 777 flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing disappeared from radar on March 8, 2014. Experts believe the plane fell into the Indian Ocean, possibly west of Australiawhen the fuel runs out. The plane was never found.

On Friday, Reuters reported that the Malaysian government had agreed to resume the search for the plane. – Our responsibility and obligation are the closest relatives (of passengers – ed.) – said the Minister of Transport of Malaysia, Anthony Loke, at a press conference. – We hope for a positive result and that the wreck will be found and bring comfort to the families – he admitted.

Jiang Hui, whose mother was a passenger on MH370 and was quoted by Reuters, welcomed the decision to resume the search, but said the process was taking too long and it would be better if more factors could be involved.

There were 239 people from 15 countries on board the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777, number MH370, including 227 passengers.

42 minutes after midnight, on the night of March 7-8, 2014, the plane took off for Beijing. After 19 minutes, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah announced that he had reached cruising altitude. As described by CNN, at 1:19 a.m. the plane left Malaysian airspace and entered the airspace Vietnam. Then the last recorded words from the cockpit were spoken: “Okay, goodnight.” It is most likely said by the co-pilot, Fariq Abdul Hamid.

Two minutes later, the plane's transponder – a device that automatically sends information to the ground to identify the plane and track its flight – stopped transmitting. Between 1:21 a.m. and 1:28 a.m. the Boeing changes course, and at 1:30 a.m. it disappears from civilian radars – it is then over the Gulf of Thailand, between Malaysia and Vietnam. The next radar contact occurs at 2:15. Military radar then pinpoints the plane over the islet of Perak in the Strait of Malacca – hundreds of miles off the correct course. According to Malaysia Airlines, at 2.40 they receive information that flight MH370 is not on the radar.

For a decade, the subsequent events have been – as Reuters describes – “one of the greatest mysteries in the history of aviation.”

As mentioned by The New York Times, initially the search was conducted mainly from the air – 334 flights were made, covering a huge area of ​​4.4 million square kilometers. Then came the underwater search, conducted by teams from Australia, Malaysia and Chinawhere most passengers came from. Almost 120,000 square kilometers of the ocean floor were searched. They were completed only in 2017, although not entirely, because the Malaysian government continued to act under pressure from the families.

While the plane itself was not found, debris believed to be from the missing plane was found on the coast of continental Africa, as well as Madagascar, Mauritius, the Réunion and Rodrigues islands. There are about 20 of them in total. The largest, washed up on the shore of the French island of Réunion, is a large fragment of a Boeing 777 wing, probably coming from MH370. As reported by The New York Times, in 2016 Australian authorities confirmed that another wing fragment washed ashore in Tanzaniacomes from the missing machine – and this can be confirmed thanks to the identification numbers.