MH370: the Greatest Mystery of Modern Commercial Aviation

Zürich, Switzerland - December 5, 2007: Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200/ER departing Zurich airport. From: Jetlinerimages

On March 8, 2014, at around 00:52 am, a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER with the registration 9M-MRO took off from runway 32R at Kuala Lumpur Airport, heading to Beijing International Airport in China with 239 people on board. But the aircraft never reached its final destination, and today, almost 10 years later, we will analyze the last official report and try to understand a little more about what happened on that fateful night in March.

MH370's "Last Dance"

It was supposed to be a very peaceful night; the pilot-in-command or PIC entered service at 10:50 pm, followed by the First Officer, who entered 25 minutes later; the aircraft was a Boeing 777-200ER with prefix 9M-MRO it had more than 53,000 flight hours and had undergone routine maintenance ten days earlier without any anomaly being detected.

The Permission to carry out the flight was given at 11:15 pm by the Operations Dispatch Center; the aircraft was supplied with 49,100kg of fuel, which allowed a range of 7h31m, which was sufficient for the 5h34m flight that the aircraft would perform. At 00:40 am on March 8, the Kuala Lumpur Tower gave Permission for flight MH370 to take off from runway 32R with 239 people on board; shortly after take-off, the aircraft climbed to flight level FL180 (The term in aviation that refers to 18,000 ft), at 00:46 am it was authorized to climb to flight level FL250 (25.000ft) and consequently to flight level FL350 (35.000ft) at 01:01 am.
The pilots contacted the Ho Chi Minh Area Control Center (Vietnam) at 01:19 am with the message "Good Night, Malaysian Three Seven Zero." this message was the last radio recording from the MH370.

Until this moment, the flight had been going as planned. Problems began to arise when the aircraft disappeared from the Kuala Lumpur, Vietnam, and Thailand radars at 01:21 am.
All information obtained after 01:21 am was collected through the Malaysian Military Radar; the same radar detected that shortly after the aircraft disappeared from civilian radars, the Boeing 777 executed a turn to the right and then a sharp turn to the left for a Heading of 273º, between 01:24 am and 01:37 am the radar detected changes in heading between 8º and 20º, speed variations between 451kt and 529kt and a change in altitude between 31.150ft and 39.116ft. Between 01:37 am and 01:51 am, the aircraft was heading between 239º and 255º. The altitude varied between 24.450ft and 47.500ft, and the speed between 532kt and 571kt at 01:52 am. The aircraft was detected at 10nm (nautical miles) from the south of Penang island with a heading of 261º at 525kt and an altitude of 44.700ft. At 02:01 am, the military radar registered the aircraft with a heading of 022º at a speed of 492kt, and an altitude of just 4.800ft; at 02:03 am, the aircraft disappeared from the radar and only reappeared at 02:15 am, the last record of MH370 by any radar was done at 02:22 am when the aircraft was 195nm (nautical miles) from Butterworth with a heading of 285º, a speed of 516kt and an altitude of 29.500ft.

Photo 1 - Graph of altitude changes (in feet[ft]) recorded by military radar

Photo 2 - Graph of speed changes (in knots [nautical miles per hour]) recorded by military radar

The investigation

The search for MH370 began on March 8, 2014, and lasted 1046 days until January 17, 2017, when operations were suspended with the decision of the governments of Malaysia, Australia, and the Democratic Republic of China. There were 52 days of surface-level searches involving aircraft and boats, covering an area of millions of square kilometers. The underwater searches began with mapping 710,000 square kilometers of the ocean and continued with ultra-resolution sonar covering approximately 120,000 square kilometers. The last vessel left the underwater search on January 17, 2017, without detecting the missing aircraft but with some debris found that indicates it was from MH370. However, scientific studies have been looking for a track, but no new information allows the aircraft's location to be determined.
The official 2018 report on which this article is based can only suggest that based on the wreckage found that the Boeing 777 broke up. However, there is insufficient information to understand whether the aircraft broke up in the air or during the impact of the ocean. The possibility of purposeful deactivation of the systems and purposeful deviation from the route by the crew or a passenger could not be ruled out without examining the black boxes and wreckage of the aircraft. The report reads: "In conclusion, the Team is unable to determine the real cause for the disappearance of MH370."

Photo 3 - Approximate reconstruction of the original flight path (Red) and the flight path performed by MH370 (White) based on data collected from the Military Radar [Not to scale]

The report is the representation of a constant search for answers to what is the greatest mystery in the history of modern commercial aviation; this report, dated July 2018, with more than 490 pages, shows that no matter how much more perfect a system is, it will always have failures. In this technological era we are living in, the international aviation community needs to provide assurances to passengers that the locations of current-generation commercial aircraft are always known. It is unacceptable to do otherwise. 10 years have passed since the aircraft's disappearance, with many questions about what happened to the Boeing 777 and the 239 people on board. Still, we believe the aircraft will be located to provide answers to the families of the passengers and crew of MH370 and finally conclude this mystery.

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