Planes go up, planes go down, but this one went missing.
If you haven't had the opportunity to watch it, it's streaming live right now on Netflix. Part of a 3 episode series released on the ninth anniversary of MH370’s disappearance. ‘MH730: The Plane That Disappeared’ details the search efforts and delves into different theories to attempt to explain how a Boeing 777-200 vanished. On March 8, 2014, Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 took off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KUL) in Malaysia, its destination Beijing, China (PEK). The flight should’ve taken seven hours. There were 239 passengers and crew aboard the aircraft. The plane disappeared 90 seconds after saying goodnight to Malaysia air traffic control. This began the most expensive search in aviation history. Episode 1 focuses on the pilot and theories surrounding the idea that he could have been responsible for the aircraft’s disappearance. In Episode 2, Jeff Wise explains his theory about how Russian passengers overtook control of the plane via an E & E bay. Finally, in Episode 3, the theory about batteries in the cargo hold was discussed. According to the official investigation report, there were 487 pounds of lithium-ion batteries.
General theories:
Terrorism: Some believe the plane was hijacked and flown to Afghanistan. This is impossible, as a flaperon was found on Reunion Island and matched the serial number of MH370.
North Korea: Rumors on social media suggested the plane had been hijacked and flown to North Korea. China is one of North Korea’s few allies and makes kidnapping its citizens highly unlikely.
Diego Garcia: Some say that the plane landed on the US military base island of Diego Garcia. Again, the debris washed up in 2015 proves it did not land here.
Cellphone Theory: Relatives of the passengers onboard MH730 said their phones were ringing when they tried to contact them. This theory was debunked by wireless analyst Jeff Kagan, who explained that ringing can still be heard after a phone has been destroyed because the network continues to search for a connection.
Russian Theory: In the documentary, Jeff Wise explained how he thought Russian passengers could’ve accessed the E & E bay and disabled the communication systems.
Cyberattack: This theory was not discussed in the documentary. Boeing dismissed this theory, stating that they were confident in their flight system security measures and that a hacker would be highly unlikely to infiltrate the system.
Debunked theories?
Black hole/Alien abduction: The flaperon was found, so these theories are debunked.
The black hole/alien abduction theories are the most ridiculous. The cellphone theory has been disproven by an expert. It is doubtful that passengers could have accessed the E & E bay and tampered with the communication systems. Now, thinking about the slightly more plausible theories, the terrorism theory, North Korea theory, and the Diego Garcia theory. These are all disproven when the flaperon was found on Reunion Island. Had the plane landed, the piece of the aircraft would not have been floating around in the ocean and been seen.
The more plausible theory and the focus of episode one in the documentary involves the pilot committing suicide. According to aviation expert Ewan’s Wilson book Good Night Malaysian 370: The Truth Behind the Loss of Flight 370, Zaharie Shah, the plane’s pilot, may have committed suicide. It was discovered that Shah had made no social or professional plans after March 8th. Flight MH370 made three turns out of its scheduled flight path. Shah’s family denies that the plane disappeared due to pilot suicide. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, radar signals recorded by the Malaysian military appear to show the missing airliner climbing to 45,000 feet, above the approved altitude limit for a Boeing 777-200, which would cause oxygen masks to deploy and passengers to lose consciousness eventually.
In this rare incident, the facts are limited, and therefore, this makes it difficult for both investigators and aviation experts to make a determination about what happened to MH 370. Could a mechanical failure have occurred, or are human actions the cause of the plane’s disappearance?
Why did the Netflix documentary not clearly say that the serial number found on the flaperon
matched MH 370?
It took 2 years to find the black box when the Air France plane crashed in the Atlantic Ocean in 2009. Investigators knew where that plane went down before they found the flight data recorders more than two miles underwater. The search for MH370 was called off in 2017. Ocean Infinity, a U.S.-based marine robotics company, hopes to reopen its investigation for MH370 in 2023 or 2024, pending approval from the Malaysian government. Time will tell if the families of those lost on that flight will ever learn the truth about what happened to their loved ones.
Want more information? Learn more or request a detailed analytical report on the data in this article by visiting Consulting by Cota or listen to episode 12 of the cotacast as I discuss this topic. listen for free on Spotify, anchor, or apple podcast on the cotacast homepage.
