In this age of digital connectivity, it’s hard to imagine that an airplane could disappear without leaving a trace. But MH370’s mysterious demise has spawned a wide range of theories, some fanciful, others more grounded in practicality. The loss devastated families on four continents, and in the decade since it went dark, fueled debate over how to prevent a future tragedy like this.
At the heart of the controversy are questions about why a sophisticated jet with redundant communications systems should be able to vanish, especially when no mayday call was ever made, and no wreckage has been found. Sarah Holder: Ten years on, investigators are still trying to figure out what happened aboard Flight 370. But, whatever the answer, one thing seems clear: A plane should never be allowed to go dark. And that’s why authorities and regulators are working to ensure planes can broadcast their location, minute by minute, in case of a problem.
In the hours immediately after MH370 disappeared, air traffic controllers tried to raise the pilots via their transponder signals, but there was no response. Then, as the aircraft crossed into Vietnamese air traffic control territory over the South China Sea, the pilots needed to check in with Ho Chi Minh City. It’s believed that less than two minutes passed between captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah’s casual “good night” to Malaysian air traffic control and the plane’s disappearance from radar screens.
At 1:52 a.m., as the 777 was approaching a waypoint on the Strait of Malacca that would put it into Vietnamese air traffic jurisdiction, the Kuala Lumpur control center instructed the pilots to check in with Ho Chi Minh City. The pilots did not, and their subsequent attempts to contact the air traffic control center in Ho Chi Minh were answered.
After the anniversary commemoration, Gibson vowed to help by filling a perceived gap between the official investigators and the passengers’ next of kin. He would become a private beachcomber, searching coastal waters for parts of the Boeing 777. The officials scoffed at his ambition but were soon forced to reconsider when he handed over a scrap of debris from a horizontal stabilizer panel that had washed up on a Mozambique beach.
The new information expanded the search area to 2.24 million square miles, enough room to fit dozens of Boeing 777s lined up wing-to-wing and nose-to-tail. Despite the vast effort, no debris has been found to prove that MH370 was located on the ocean floor off the coast of Central Asia. The mystery remains one of modern aviation’s biggest mysteries, but there are ways to improve the odds that it will be solved.