Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

Flight 370 last made voice contact with ATC at 01:19 MYT, 8 March (17:19 UTC, 7 March) when it was over the South China Sea, less than an hour after takeoff. It disappeared from ATC radar screens at 01:22 MYT, but was still tracked on military radar as it turned sharply away from its original northeastern course to head west and cross the Malay Peninsula, continuing that course until leaving the range of the military radar at 02:22 while over the Andaman Sea, northwest of Penang Island, in northwestern Malaysia. The multinational search effort for the aircraft, which was to become the most expensive aviation search in history, where the aircraft's signal was last detected on secondary surveillance radar, and was soon extended to the Strait of Malacca and Andaman Sea. Analysis of satellite communications between the aircraft and Inmarsat's satellite communications network concluded that the flight continued until at least 08:19 (nearly an hour after Malaysia Airlines publicly announced the plane's loss) and flew south into the southern Indian Ocean, although the precise location cannot be determined. Australia assumed charge of the search on 17 March, when the search effort began to emphasise the southern Indian Ocean. On 24 March, the Malaysian government noted that the final location determined by the satellite communication was far from any possible landing sites, and concluded, "Flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean." In a previous search attempt, Malaysia had established a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to investigate the incident, working with foreign aviation authorities and experts. Malaysia released a final report concerning Flight 370 on 17 October 2017. Neither the crew nor the aircraft's communication systems relayed a distress signal, indications of bad weather, or technical problems before the aircraft vanished. Two Iranian passengers travelling on stolen passports were investigated but eliminated as suspects. Malaysian police identified the captain as the prime suspect if human intervention was the cause of the disappearance, after clearing all others on the flight of suspicion over possible motives. Power was lost to the aircraft's satellite data unit (SDU) at some point between 01:07 and 02:03; the SDU logged onto Inmarsat's satellite communication network at 02:25, which was three minutes after the aircraft had left the range of radar. Based on analysis of the satellite communications, the aircraft was postulated to have turned south after passing north of Sumatra and then to have flown for six hours with little deviation in its track, ending when its fuel was exhausted. With the loss of all 239 lives on board, Flight 370 is the second-deadliest incident involving a Boeing 777 and the second-deadliest incident of Malaysia Airlines' history, second to Flight 17 in both categories. Malaysia Airlines was struggling financially, a problem that was exacerbated by a decrease of ticket sales after the disappearance of Flight 370 and the downing of Flight 17; the airline was renationalised by the end of 2014. The Malaysian government received significant criticism, especially from China, for failing to disclose information promptly during the early weeks of the search. Flight 370's disappearance brought to public attention the limits of aircraft tracking and flight recorders, including the limited battery life of underwater locator beacons (an issue that had been raised about four years earlier following the loss of Air France Flight 447 but had never been resolved). In response to Flight 370's disappearance, the International Civil Aviation Organization adopted new standards for aircraft position reporting over open ocean, extended recording time for cockpit voice recorders, and, starting from 2020, new aircraft designs have been required to have a means of recovering the flight recorders, or the information they contain, before they sink into the water. == Background ==

Aircraft Flight 370 was operated with a Boeing 777-2H6ER, serial number 28420, registered as 9M-MRO. The aircraft was delivered new to Malaysia Airlines on 31 May 2002. The Boeing 777 was introduced in 1994 and has an excellent safety record. Since its first commercial flight in June 1995, the type has suffered only six other hull losses: • the crash of British Airways Flight 38 in 2008; • a cockpit fire in a parked EgyptAir Flight 667 at Cairo International Airport in 2011; • Emirates Flight 521, which crashed and burned out while landing at Dubai International Airport in August 2016 killing one person; • and in November 2017, the seventh Boeing 777 hull loss occurred when a Singapore Airlines 777-200ER was written off after catching fire and burning out at Singapore Changi Airport. Passengers and crew The aircraft was carrying 12 Malaysian crew members and 227 passengers from 14 different nations. On the day of the disappearance, Malaysia Airlines released the names and nationalities of the passengers and crew, based on the flight manifest. He joined Malaysia Airlines as a cadet pilot in 1981, and after training and receiving his commercial pilot's license, he became a second officer with the airline in 1983. He was promoted to captain of the Boeing 737-400 in 1991, captain of the Airbus A330-300 in 1996, and captain of the Boeing 777-200 in 1998. He had been a type-rating instructor and a type-rating examiner since 2007. Zaharie had a total of 18,365 hours of flying experience. Altogether, 115 family members of the Chinese passengers flew to Kuala Lumpur. Some other family members chose to remain in China, fearing they would feel too isolated in Malaysia. == Flight and disappearance ==

(military) and secondary (ATC) radar data|alt=Map of southeast Asia that shows the southern tip of Vietnam in the upper right (northeast), Malay Peninsula (southern part of Thailand, part of Malaysia, and Singapore), upper part of Sumatra island, most of the Gulf of Thailand, southwestern part of the South China Sea, Strait of Malacca, and part of the Andaman Sea. The flight path of Flight 370 is shown in red, going from KLIA (lower centre) on a straight path northeast, then (in the upper right side) turning to the right before making a sharp turn left and flies in a path that resembles a wide "V" shape (about a 120–130° angle) and ends in the upper left side. Labels note where the last ACARS message was sent just before Flight 370 crossed from Malaysia into the South China Sea, last detection was made by secondary radar before the aircraft turned right, and where final detection by military radar was made at the point where the path ends. Flight 370 was a scheduled flight in the early morning of Saturday, 8 March 2014, from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China. It was one of two daily flights operated by Malaysia Airlines from its hub at Kuala Lumpur International Airport to Beijing Capital International Airport—scheduled to depart at 00:35 local time (MYT; UTC+08:00) and arrive at 06:30 local time (CST; UTC+08:00). The planned flight duration was 5 hours and 34 minutes, which would consume an estimated of jet fuel. The aircraft carried of fuel, including reserves, allowing an endurance of 7 hours and 31 minutes. The extra fuel was enough to divert to alternate airports—Jinan Yaoqiang International Airport and Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport—which would require or , respectively, to reach from Beijing. Communication lost The aircraft's final transmission before its disappearance from radar was an automated position report, sent using the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) protocol at 01:06 MYT. Among the data provided in this message was the total fuel remaining: . The last verbal signal to air traffic control occurred at 01:19:30, when Captain Zaharie acknowledged a transition from Lumpur Radar to Ho Chi Minh ACC: Thai military radar detected an aircraft that might have been Flight 370, but it is not known at what time the last radar contact was made, and the signal did not include identifying data. Also, the flight was not detected by Australia's conventional system or its long-range JORN over-the-horizon radar system, which has an official range of ; the latter was not in operation on the night of the disappearance. Response by air traffic control s in the vicinity of where Flight 370 disappeared from secondary radar. Kuala Lumpur ACC provides ATC services for two routes, located within FIR Singapore, between Malaysia and Vietnam. (Air routes are depicted as roughly 5 nmi / 8–10 km wide, but vary in width, with some as wide as 20 nmi / 35–40 km.)|alt=Background is mostly water (blue), at the boundary of the South China Sea and Gulf of Thailand with the extreme southern tip of Vietnam in the upper right and a part of the Malay Peninsula at the Malaysia-Thailand border in the bottom left corner. Numerous air routes and a few waypoints are displayed, with some labelled, and the flight path of Flight 370 is shown in bright red. The boundaries of flight information regions are shown. The flight path goes from the bottom, just left of centre, going north near air route R208, crossing from FIR Kuala Lumpur into FIR Singapore, but there is a note that air traffic control along R208 through FIR Singapore is provided by Kuala Lumpur ACC. A label notes where Flight 370 disappeared from primary radar just before turning slightly to the right at waypoint IGARI, which is along the boundary between FIR Singapore and FIR Ho Chi Minh, and the aircraft begins to follow route M765 towards waypoint BITOD. About halfway between IGARI and BITOD, Flight 370 makes a sharp turn about 100° to the left, now heading northwest, and travels a short distance before making another left turn and heads southwest, crossing back over land near the Malaysia-Thailand border and flies close to air route B219. At 01:38 MYT, Ho Chi Minh Area Control Centre (ACC) contacted Kuala Lumpur Area Control Centre to query the whereabouts of Flight 370 and informed Kuala Lumpur that ACC had not established verbal communication with Flight 370, which was last detected by radar at waypoint BITOD. The two centres exchanged four more calls during the next 20 minutes with no new information. At 03:30, Malaysia Airlines' operations centre informed Kuala Lumpur ACC that the locations it had provided earlier were "based on flight projection and not reliable for aircraft positioning." Over the next hour, Kuala Lumpur ACC contacted Ho Chi Minh ACC, asking whether they had signalled Chinese air traffic control. At 05:09, Singapore ACC was queried for information about Flight 370. At 05:20, an undisclosed official contacted Kuala Lumpur ACC requesting information about Flight 370; he opined that, based on known information, "MH370 never left Malaysian airspace." The ARCC is a command post at an Area Control Centre that coordinates search-and-rescue activities when an aircraft is lost. Presumed loss Malaysia Airlines issued a media statement at 07:24 MYT on 8 March, one hour after the scheduled arrival time of the flight at Beijing, stating that communication with the flight had been lost by Malaysian ATC at 02:40 and that the government had initiated search-and-rescue operations. If the official assumption is confirmed, Flight 370 was, at the time of its disappearance, the deadliest aviation incident in the history of Malaysian Airlines, surpassing the 1977 hijacking and crash of Malaysian Airline System Flight 653 that killed all 100 passengers and crew aboard, and the deadliest involving a Boeing 777, surpassing Asiana Airlines Flight 214 (three fatalities). A fisherman claimed to have seen an unusually low-flying aircraft off the coast of Kota Bharu, while an oil-rig worker southeast of Vung Tau claimed he saw a "burning object" in the sky that morning, a claim credible enough for the Vietnamese authorities to send a search-and-rescue mission, and Indonesian fishermen reported witnessing an aircraft crash near the Malacca Straits. Two days later, the Malaysia-based The Star reported that a Malaysian woman "claimed that she saw the stricken Malaysia Airlines plane partly submerged in the waters off the Andaman Islands" on the day the jet disappeared. Three months later, the Phuket Gazette reported that a British woman sailing in the Indian Ocean claimed to have seen an aircraft on fire. == Search ==

patrol aircraft of the US Navy departs Perth Airport on 22 March 2014 to search for MH370. deploys the Bluefin-21 autonomous underwater vehicle, which conducted the seafloor sonar survey from 14 April to 28 May 2014. A search-and-rescue effort was launched in southeast Asia soon after the disappearance of Flight 370. Following the initial analysis of communications between the aircraft and a satellite, the surface search was moved to the southern Indian Ocean one week after the aircraft's disappearance. Between 18 March and 28 April, 19 vessels and 345 sorties by military aircraft searched over . The final phase of the search was a bathymetric survey and sonar search of the sea floor, about southwest of Perth, Western Australia. With effect from 30 March 2014, the search was coordinated by the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC), an Australian government agency that was established specifically to manage the effort to locate and recover Flight 370, and which primarily involved the Malaysian, Chinese, and Australian governments. On 17 January 2017, the official search for Flight 370—which had proven to be the most expensive search operation in aviation history—was suspended after yielding no evidence of the aircraft other than some marine debris on the coast of Africa. The final ATSB report, published on 17 October 2017, stated that the underwater search for the aircraft, , had cost a total of US$155 million (~$ in ). The underwater search accounted for 86% of this amount, bathymetry 10%, and programme management 4%. Malaysia had supported 58% of the total cost, Australia 32%, and China 10%. The report also concluded that the location where the aircraft went down had been narrowed to an area of by using satellite images and debris drift analysis. In January 2018, the private American marine-exploration company Ocean Infinity resumed the search for MH370 in the narrowed 25,000 km2 area, using the Norwegian ship Seabed Constructor. The search area was significantly extended during the course of the search, and by the end of May 2018, the vessel had searched a total area of more than using eight autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). The contract with the Malaysian government ended soon afterward, and the search was concluded without success on 9 June 2018. Accordingly, on 17 March, Australia agreed to manage the search in the southern locus from Sumatra to the southern Indian Ocean. several objects of interest and two possible debris fields were identified on images made between 16 and 26 March. None of these possible objects were found by aircraft or ships. Revised estimates of the radar track and the aircraft's remaining fuel led to a move of the search northeast of the previous area on 28 March, Between 2 and 17 April, an effort was made to detect the underwater locator beacons (ULBs, informally known as "pingers") attached to the aircraft's flight recorders, because the beacons' batteries were expected to expire around 7 April. Australian naval cutter ADV Ocean Shield, equipped with a towed pinger locator (TPL), joined China's Haixun 01, equipped with a hand-held hydrophone, and the Royal Navy's HMS Echo, equipped with a hull-mounted hydrophone, in the search. Operators considered the effort to have little chance of success given the vast search area and the fact that a TPL can only search up to per day. Underwater search In late June 2014, details of the next phase of the search were announced; officials have called this phase the "underwater search" despite the previous seafloor sonar survey. Continued refinement of the analysis of Flight 370's satellite communications identified a "wide area search" along the "7th arc" where Flight 370 was located when it last communicated with the satellite. The priority search area was in the southern extent of the wide area search. Some of the equipment used for the underwater search is most effective when towed above the seafloor at the end of a cable. Available bathymetric data for this region was of poor resolution, thus necessitating a bathymetric survey of the search area before the underwater phase began. Commencing in May, the survey charted around of seafloor until 17 December 2014, when it was suspended so that the ship conducting the survey could be mobilised in the underwater search. The governments of Malaysia, China, and Australia made a joint commitment to thoroughly search of seafloor. This phase of the search, which began on 6 October 2014, A fourth vessel participated in the search between January and May 2015, using an AUV to search areas that could not be effectively searched using equipment on the other vessels. Following the discovery of the flaperon on Réunion, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) reviewed its drift calculations for debris from the aircraft and, according to the JACC, was satisfied that the search area was still the most likely crash site. 2018 search On 17 October 2017, Dutch-based Fugro and American company Ocean Infinity offered to resume the search for the aircraft. In January 2018, Ocean Infinity announced that it was planning to resume the search in the narrowed area. The search attempt was approved by the Malaysian government, provided that payment would be made only if the wreckage were found. In April, a report by Ocean Infinity revealed that "site 4", farther northeast along the 7th arc, had been added to the search plan. By the end of May 2018, the vessel had searched a total area of over , using eight AUVs; The final phase of the search was conducted in "site 4" in May 2018, Malaysia's new transport minister Loke Siew Fook announced on 23 May 2018 that the search for MH370 would conclude at the end of the month. Ocean Infinity confirmed on 31 May that its contract with the Malaysian government had ended, and it was reported on 9 June 2018 that the Ocean Infinity search had come to an end. Ocean-floor mapping data collected during the search has been donated to the Nippon Foundation–GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project, to be incorporated into the global map of the ocean floor. In March 2019, in the wake of the fifth anniversary of the disappearance, the Malaysian government stated that it was willing to look at any "credible leads or specific proposals" regarding a new search. Ocean Infinity stated that it was ready to resume the search on the same no-find, no-fee basis, believing that it would benefit from the experience that it had gained from its search for the wreck of Argentinian submarine ARA San Juan and bulk carrier ship Stellar Daisy. Ocean Infinity believed that the most probable location was still somewhere along the 7th arc around the area identified previously and upon which its 2018 search was based. In March 2022, Ocean Infinity committed to resuming its search in 2023 or 2024 pending approval by the Malaysian government. In 2023 Ocean Infinity was reviewing data from their previous 2018 search to ensure nothing was missed. CEO Oliver Plunkett hoped to resume the search in mid-2023 using Ocean Infinity's new Armada vessel. The transportation minister of Malaysia, Wee Ka Siong, requested credible new evidence from Ocean Infinity in order to resume the search, which Plunkett was allegedly in possession of. Claims of yet-to-be-identified new evidence has incited victims' families to further push for another search. In March 2024, days before the tenth anniversary of the disappearance, Malaysia said it would consult with Australia about collaborating on another expedition by the Ocean Infinity team. 2025–2026 search On 2 May 2024, Ocean Infinity sent Malaysian Minister of Transport Anthony Loke a proposal for a new MH370 underwater search. On 20 December 2024, the Malaysian Government announced that it would resume the search for MH370 and that it would be carried out by Ocean Infinity to cover a 15,000 square km area in the southern Indian Ocean. It was expected to cost $70m (£56m), but, as with the 2018 search, this search would be on a "no find, no fee" basis. On 25 February 2025, Minister of Transport Loke confirmed that Ocean Infinity had resumed the search. Subsequently, however, on 3 April 2025, Loke announced that Ocean Infinity had suspended its search due to seasonal weather conditions but that "they will resume the search at the end of this year". On 3 December 2025, the Malaysian Transport Ministry issued an official statement confirming that search operations for MH370 would resume on 30 December 2025 for a total of 55 days. The search was conducted intermittently in targeted areas assessed to have the highest probability of locating the aircraft, in line with the service agreement signed between the Malaysian government and Ocean Infinity on 25 March 2025. Ocean Infinity conducted the search on a “no find, no fee” basis, with the company undertaking to search a new 5,800-sq-mile (15,000-km2) ocean area and to be paid $70m (£52m) only if wreckage is discovered. The search formally resumed on 31 December, with the Armada 86 05 leaving the port of Fremantle, Western Australia assisted by two autonomous underwater vehicles. It concluded on 23 January 2026 without success. == Marine debris ==

By October 2017, twenty pieces of debris believed to be from 9M-MRO had been recovered from beaches in the western Indian Ocean; 18 of the items were "identified as being very likely or almost certain to originate from MH370", while the other two were "assessed as probably from the accident aircraft." and a drift study of the recovered objects by the CSIRO, identifying the crash area "with unprecedented precision and certainty" at , northeast of the main underwater search zone. Flaperon The first item of debris to be positively identified as originating from Flight 370 was the right flaperon (a trailing edge control surface). It was discovered in late July 2015 on a beach in Saint-André, Réunion, an island in the western Indian Ocean, about west of the underwater search area. On 3 September 2015, French officials announced that serial numbers found on internal components of the flaperon linked it "with certainty" to Flight 370. These serial numbers were retrieved using a borescope. After the discovery, French police conducted a search of the waters around Réunion for additional debris. This found a damaged suitcase that was initially linked to Flight 370, but officials have since doubted this connection. The location of the discovery was consistent with models of debris dispersal 16 months after an origin in the search area then in progress off the west coast of Australia. A Chinese water bottle and an Indonesian cleaning product were also found in the same area. In August 2015, France carried out an aerial search for possible marine debris around the island, covering an area of along the east coast of Réunion. Malaysia asked authorities in neighbouring states to be on the alert for marine debris that might have come from an aircraft. On 14 August, it was announced that no debris that could be traced to Flight 370 had been found at sea off Réunion, but that some items had been found on land. Air and sea searches for debris ended on 17 August. The flaperon was covered in Lepas anatifera barnacles, which grow in certain patterns and only while underwater. Researchers have analysed the barnacles on the flaperon in an attempt to deduce its path to Réunion. Parts from the right stabiliser and right wing In late February 2016, an object bearing a stencilled label of "NO STEP" was found off the coast of Mozambique; early photographic analysis suggested that it could have come from the aircraft's horizontal stabiliser or from the leading edges of the wings. The part was found by Blaine Gibson in southern Mozambique, around southwest of where the flaperon had been found the previous July. The fragment was sent to Australia, where experts identified it as almost certainly a horizontal stabiliser panel from 9M-MRO. In December 2015, Liam Lotter had found a grey piece of debris on a beach in southern Mozambique, but only after reading in March 2016 about Gibson's find—some from his own—did his family alert authorities. and the style of lettering matched that of stencils used by Malaysia Airlines, making it almost certain that the part came from 9M-MRO. The locations where the objects were found are consistent with the drift model performed by CSIRO, On 21 March 2016, South African archaeologist Neels Kruger found a grey piece of debris on a beach near Mossel Bay, South Africa, that had an unmistakable partial logo of Rolls-Royce, the manufacturer of the missing aircraft's engines. The Malaysian ministry of transport acknowledged that the piece could be that of an engine cowling. An additional piece of possible debris, suggested to have come from the interior of the aircraft, was found on the island of Rodrigues, Mauritius, in late March. On 11 May 2016, Australian authorities determined that the two pieces of debris were "almost certainly" from Flight 370. Flap and further search On 24 June 2016, Australian transport minister Darren Chester said that a piece of aircraft debris had been found on Pemba Island, off the coast of Tanzania. It was handed over to the authorities so that experts from Malaysia could determine its origin. On 20 July, the Australian government released photographs of the piece, which was believed to be an outboard flap from one of the aircraft's wings. Malaysia's transport ministry confirmed on 15 September that the debris was indeed from the missing aircraft. On 21 November 2016, families of the victims announced that they would carry out a search for debris in December on the island of Madagascar. On 30 November 2018, five pieces of debris recovered between December 2016 and August 2018 on the Malagasy coast, and believed by victims' relatives to be from MH370, were handed to Malaysian transport minister Anthony Loke. Texas A&M University mathematics professor Goong Chen has argued that the plane may have entered the sea vertically; any other angle of entry would make the aircraft splinter into many pieces, which would have been found already. == Investigation ==

International participation Malaysia quickly assembled a Joint Investigation Team (JIT), consisting of specialists from Malaysia, China, the United Kingdom, the United States, and France, In 2024, researchers at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom conducted a study on underwater hydrophone signals generated by airplane crashes in the ocean. The researchers claimed that these signals could be key to detecting the final resting place of MH370, potentially bringing the UK back into the search efforts. It confirmed that the plane was manually turned around, taking it off its normal flight path just after 01:00 MYT, "either by the pilot or a third party" and that the plane was missing for twenty minutes before anyone was alerted. Analysis of satellite communication The communications between Flight 370 and the satellite communication network operated by Inmarsat, which were relayed by the Inmarsat-3 F1 satellite, provide the only significant clues to the location of Flight 370 after disappearing from Malaysian military radar at 02:22 MYT. These communications have also been used to infer possible in-flight events. The investigative team was challenged with reconstructing the flight path of Flight 370 from a limited set of transmissions with no explicit information about the aircraft's location, heading, or speed. using other protocols. The aircraft uses a satellite data unit (SDU) to send and receive signals over the satellite communications network; this operates independently from the other onboard systems that communicate via SATCOM, mostly using the ACARS protocol. Signals from the SDU are transmitted to a communications satellite, which amplifies the signal and changes its frequency before relaying it to a ground station, where the signal is processed and, if applicable, routed to its intended destination (e.g. Malaysia Airlines' operations centre); signals are sent from the ground to the aircraft in reverse order. When the SDU is first powered on, it attempts to connect with the Inmarsat network by transmitting a log-on request, which is acknowledged by the ground station. SDU communications Although the ACARS data link on Flight 370 stopped functioning between 01:07 and 02:03 MYT (most likely around the same time the plane lost contact by secondary radar), At 08:19, the aircraft had been airborne for 7 hours and 38 minutes; the typical Kuala Lumpur-Beijing flight is 5 hours, so fuel exhaustion was likely. In the event of fuel exhaustion and engine flame-out, which would eliminate power to the SDU, the aircraft's ram air turbine (RAT) would deploy, providing power to some instruments and flight controls, including the SDU. Two parameters associated with these transmissions that were recorded in a log at the ground station were key to the investigation: • Burst time offset (BTO) – the time difference between when a signal is sent from the ground station and when the response is received. This measure is proportional to twice the distance from the ground station via the satellite to the aircraft and includes the time that the SDU takes between receiving and responding to the message and time between reception and processing at the ground station. This measure was analysed to determine the distance between the satellite and the aircraft at the time each of the seven handshakes occurred, and thereby defining seven circles on the Earth's surface the points on whose circumference are equidistant from the satellite at the calculated distance. Those circles were then reduced to arcs by eliminating those parts of each circle that lay outside the aircraft's range. Usama Kadri stated that hydrophone data relating to MH370's crash identified "only a single, relatively weak signal" within the time frame and location of the official search, unlike the "clear pressure signals" shown in previous accidents' data with such impact. He also noted that, "it is implausible to imagine that a significant crash of an aircraft on the ocean surface would fail to generate a discernible pressure signature," suggesting that controlled explosion experiments could "almost pinpoint" the aircraft's location, or possibly raise the need to reassess the time frame or location currently established. == Speculated causes of disappearance ==

Murder–suicide by pilot Malaysian police investigated the homes of the pilots and examined the financial records of all 12 crew members. According to the preliminary report released by Malaysia in March 2015, there was "no evidence of recent or imminent significant financial transactions carried out" by any pilot or crew member. Additionally, analysis of the pilots' behaviour on CCTV revealed "no significant behavioural changes." Media reports have claimed that Malaysian police identified Captain Zaharie as the prime suspect, should human intervention be proven as the cause of the disappearance. In 2020, former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott stated in a Sky News documentary: "My very clear understanding, from the very top levels of the Malaysian government, is that from very, very early on, they thought it was murder–suicide by the pilot." In 2023, retired engineers and pilots Jean-Luc Marchand and Patrick Blelly gave several conferences on the pilot suicide theory, supporting this argument with extensive analysis and a detailed report published online. Pilot's flight simulator In 2016, New York magazine wrote that a confidential document from the Malaysian police investigation showed an FBI analysis of the flight simulator's computer hard drive found a route on Captain Zaharie's home flight simulator that closely matched the projected flight over the Indian Ocean and that this evidence had been withheld from the publicly released investigative report. New York wrote as follows: The FBI's findings about the flight simulation were confirmed by the ATSB. News of the simulation was also confirmed by the Malaysian government, but reported as "nothing sinister". At 02:25, the aircraft's SDU rebooted itself and sent a log-on request. One passenger, who worked as a flight engineer for a Swiss jet charter company, was briefly under suspicion as a potential hijacker because he was thought to have the relevant "aviation skills". The lithium-ion batteries were contained in a consignment being shipped from Motorola Solutions facilities in Bayan Lepas, Malaysia, to Tianjin, China. They were packaged in accordance with IATA guidelines, but did not go through any additional inspections at Kuala Lumpur International Airport before being loaded onto Flight 370. and has led to strict regulations on transport aircraft. If no control inputs were made following flameout and the disengagement of autopilot, the aircraft would likely have entered a spiral dive In May 2018, the ATSB again asserted that the flight was not in control when it crashed, its spokesperson adding that "We have quite a bit of data to tell us that the aircraft, if it was being controlled at the end, it wasn't very successfully being controlled". == Aftermath ==

Criticism of Malaysian authorities' management of information Public communication from Malaysian officials regarding the loss of Flight 370 was initially beset with confusion. The Malaysian government and the airline released imprecise, incomplete, and occasionally inaccurate information, with civilian officials sometimes contradicting military leaders. The campaign, which ended on 8 August 2014, raised US$100,516 from 1,007 contributors. Malaysia Airlines A month after the disappearance, Malaysia Airlines' chief executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya acknowledged that ticket sales had declined but failed to provide specific details. This may have partially resulted from the suspension of the airline's advertising campaigns following the disappearance. Ahmad stated in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that the airline's "primary focus...is that we do take care of the families in terms of their emotional needs and also their financial needs. It is important that we provide answers for them. It is important that the world has answers, as well." In further remarks, Ahmad said he was not sure when the airline could start repairing its image, but that the airline was adequately insured to cover the financial loss stemming from Flight 370's disappearance. In China, where the majority of passengers were from, bookings on Malaysia Airlines were down 60% in March. Malaysia Airlines retired the MH370 flight number and replaced it with MH318 (Flight 318) beginning 14 March 2014. This follows a common practice among airlines to redesignate flights after notorious accidents. As of September 2025, Malaysia Airlines still operates the Kuala Lumpur–Beijing route as MH318, though the flight now lands into Beijing Daxing instead of Beijing Capital. Malaysia Airlines was given US$110 million (~$ in ) from insurers in March 2014 to cover initial payments to passengers' families and the search effort. In May, remarks from lead reinsurer of the flight, Allianz, indicated the insured market loss on Flight 370, including the search, was about US$350 million. In 2017, Malaysia Airlines announced that they are the first airline to sign up for a new service that would track its airplanes anywhere in the world using orbiting satellites. Financial troubles At the time of Flight 370's disappearance, Malaysia Airlines was struggling to cut costs to compete with a wave of new, low-cost carriers in the region. In the previous three years, Malaysia Airlines had booked losses of: RM1.17 billion (US$356 million) in 2013, RM433 million in 2012, and RM2.5 billion in 2011. Industry analysts expected Malaysia Airlines to lose further market share and face a challenging environment to stand out from competitors while addressing its financial plight. The loss of Flight 17 in July greatly exacerbated Malaysia Airline's financial problems. The combined effect on consumer confidence of the loss of Flight 370 and Flight 17, and the airline's poor financial performance, led Khazanah Nasional—the majority shareholder (69.37%) and a Malaysian state-run investment arm—to announce on 8 August its plan to purchase the remainder of the airline, thereby renationalising it. Malaysia Airlines renationalised on 1 September 2015. Compensation for passengers' next of kin Lack of evidence in determining the cause of Flight 370's disappearance, as well as the absence of any physical confirmation that the airplane crashed, raises many issues regarding responsibility for the accident and the payments made by insurance agencies. Under the Montreal Convention, it is the carrier's responsibility to prove lack of fault in an accident and each passenger's next of kin are automatically entitled, regardless of fault, to a payment of approximately US$175,000 from the airline's insurance company—amounting to a total of almost US$40 million for the 227 passengers on board. Despite the announcement that the flight ended in the southern Indian Ocean, it was not until 29 January 2015 that the Malaysian government officially declared Flight 370 an accident with no survivors, a move that would allow compensation claims to be made. The first civil case relating to the disappearance was filed in October 2014—even before Flight 370 had been declared an accident—on behalf of two Malaysian boys whose father was a passenger; they were claiming for negligence in failing to contact the aircraft soon after it was lost and for breach of contract for failing to bring the passenger to his destination. Additional civil proceedings against Malaysia Airlines were filed in China and Malaysia. Soon after the disappearance of Flight 370, Malaysia Airlines offered ex gratia condolence payments to families of the passengers. In China, the families were offered ¥31,000 (approx. US$5,000) "comfort money", (which later occurred in January 2015). The Malaysian military became aware of the unidentified aircraft only after reviewing radar recordings several hours after the flight's disappearance. Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim criticised the Malaysian government regarding its response to Flight 370's disappearance and the military's response when Flight 370 turned back over the Malay Peninsula; he called for an international committee to take charge of the investigation "to save the image of the country and to save the country." According to former air force pilot major Ahmad Zaidi of RMAF Butterworth, no pilot stays on the base during the night, so the aircraft could not have been intercepted. The response to the crisis and lack of transparency in the response brought attention to the state of media in Malaysia. After decades of tight media control, during which government officials were accustomed to passing over issues without scrutiny or accountability, Malaysia was suddenly thrust into the spotlight of the global media and unable to adjust to demands for transparency. March 2020 On 8 March 2020, six years after the disappearance, two memorial events were held to mark the anniversary. Families of MH370 passengers called for a new search for the flight in a bid to seek closure. Malaysia's former Transport Minister Anthony Loke had attended one of the events, expressing regret at being unable to table the compensation documents at the Cabinet level as per his original intent. The families hoped that the new Transport Minister Wee Ka Siong could expedite the compensation matters. Malaysia's transport ministry secretary-general, Datuk Isham Ishak, stated that he had already submitted a request to meet the Prime Minister (Muhyiddin Yassin) the following week of 15 to 22 March so that he could present the paper on compensation for the families of MH370 victims, and that the ministry would also continue to seek support from the new government to resume the search for the missing aircraft. China Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Xie Hangsheng reacted sceptically to the conclusion by the Malaysian government that the aircraft had gone down with no survivors, demanding on 24 March 2014 "all the relevant information and evidence about the satellite data analysis", and said that the Malaysian government must "finish all the work including search and rescue." Boycotts Some Chinese citizens boycotted all things Malaysian, including holidays and singers, in protest of Malaysia's handling of the Flight 370 investigation. Bookings on Malaysia Airlines from China, where the majority of passengers were from, were down 60% in March. and several large Chinese travel agencies reported a 50% drop in tourists compared to the same period the year before. China was the third-largest source of visitors to Malaysia prior to Flight 370's disappearance, accounting for 1.79 million tourists in 2013. One market analyst predicted a 20–40% drop in Chinese tourists to Malaysia, resulting in a loss of 4–8 billion yuan (RM2.1–4.2 billion; US$0.65–1.3 billion). The boycotts were largely led or supported by celebrities. Film star Chen Kun posted a message to Weibo—where he had 70 million followers—stating that he would be boycotting Malaysia until its government told the truth. The post was shared over 70,000 times and drew over 30,000 comments. More than 337,000 people retweeted a tweet from TV host Meng Fei which said that he would join the boycott. Aircraft tracking The International Air Transport Association (IATA)—an industry trade organisation representing more than 240 airlines (accounting for 84% of global air traffic)—and the ICAO began working on implementing new measures to track aircraft in flight in real time. The task force was expected to provide a report to the ICAO on 30 September 2014, but announced on that date that the report would be delayed, citing the need for further clarification on some issues. In December 2014, the IATA task force recommended that, within 12 months, airlines track commercial aircraft in no longer than 15-minute intervals. The IATA itself did not support the deadline, which it believed could not be met by all airlines, but the proposed standard had the support of the ICAO. Although the ICAO can set standards, it has no legal authority, and such standards must be adopted by member states. In 2016, the ICAO adopted a standard that, by November 2018, all aircraft over open ocean report their position every 15 minutes. In May 2014, Inmarsat said that it would offer its tracking service for free to all aircraft equipped with an Inmarsat satellite connection (which includes the vast majority of commercial airliners). Inmarsat also changed the time period for handshakes with its terminals from one hour to 15 minutes. Transponders After the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, calls were made for transponders to become automated rather than manually operated; no changes were made because aviation experts preferred flexible control, in case of malfunctions or electrical emergencies. The maximum distance from the ULBs at which the signal can be detected is normally , or under favourable conditions. Given these shortcomings, and the importance of the data stored on flight recorders, Flight 370 has brought to attention new technologies that enable data streaming to the ground. A call to increase the battery life of ULBs was made following the unsuccessful initial search in 2009 for the flight recorders on Air France Flight 447, which were not located until 2011. A formal recommendation that the ULB design be upgraded to offer a longer battery life, or to make the recorders ejectable, had been included in the final report of the board of inquiry into the loss of South African Airways Flight 295 over the Indian Ocean in 1987, but it was not until 2014 that the ICAO made such a recommendation, with implementation required by 2018. The agency has also proposed that a new underwater locator beacon with a greater range of transmission should be fitted to aircraft that fly over oceans. == In popular culture ==

The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has been described as "one of the biggest mysteries in modern aviation history". Several documentaries have been produced about the flight. The Smithsonian Channel aired a one-hour documentary on 6 April 2014, titled Malaysia 370: The Plane That Vanished, and the Discovery Channel broadcast a one-hour documentary about Flight 370 on 16 April 2014, titled Flight 370: The Missing Links. On 17 June 2014, an episode of the television documentary series Horizon, titled "Where Is Flight MH370?" was broadcast on BBC Two. The programme documents how the aircraft disappeared, what experts believe to have happened to it, and how the search has unfolded. It also examines new technologies, such as flight recorder streaming and automatic dependent surveillance – broadcast (ADS-B), which may help prevent similar disappearances in the future. The programme concludes by noting that Ocean Shield had spent two months searching of ocean, but that it had searched far to the north of the Inmarsat "hotspot" on the final arc, at approximately 28 degrees south, where the aircraft was most likely to have crashed. On 8 October 2014, a modified version of the Horizon programme was broadcast in the U.S. by PBS as an episode of NOVA, titled "Why Planes Vanish". The aviation disaster documentary television series Mayday (also known as Air Crash Investigation and Air Emergency) produced an episode on the disaster, titled "What Happened to Malaysian 370?". The episode aired in the UK on 8 March 2015, the first anniversary of Flight 370's disappearance. In August 2018, the television series Drain the Oceans, which airs on the National Geographic channel, highlighted the disaster, the methods used in the search, and the potential discoveries. Panoply made a podcast story loosely based on the disappearance of MH370, called "Passenger List". Kelly Marie Tran played the lead character. Jeff Rake, creator of the NBC show Manifest, said that after he had pitched his idea for the show without any success, the MH370 disappearance led to the TV network's sudden interest. The first work of fiction about the incident was MH370: A Novella, by New Zealand author Scott Maka. In 2022, a three-part documentary series, titled MH370: The Lost Flight, was released. On the ninth anniversary of the flight's disappearance, 8 March 2023, a three-part docuseries, MH370: The Plane That Disappeared premiered on Netflix. In 2023, American comedian Jocelyn Chia was investigated by Malaysian police for breaching Malaysian laws relating to incitement and offensive online content, after making a joke about the flight at Comedy Cellar in New York City. Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani, chief of the Malaysian police, said an application would be filed to Interpol to find Chia's "full identity" and "latest location". A video of her stand-up performance was removed from TikTok for violating the platform's hate speech guidelines. The Singaporean ambassador to Malaysia stated that Chia (who grew up in Singapore) did not speak for Singaporeans. Vivian Balakrishnan, Singaporean Foreign Minister, called Chia's joke "horrendous statements". Chia stood by the joke, stating that it was being "taken out of context" and had been performed over 100 times without complaints before. == See also ==