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What happened to Malaysian airlines flight 370?

Flight 370

By Dilip kumar padiPublished about a year ago 8 min read

On 8 March 2014, a Malaysian Airlines flight took off from Kuala Lumpur but did not reach Beijing, its destination. Till date, no one knows about the whereabouts of this flight. But after eight years finally, we've found a clue about the location of this aircraft. Welcome you once again in the space. Viewers, the date was 8th March 2014 that is, about eight years ago, flight MH370, an aircraft of Malaysian Airlines, was bound to take off from the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur and land in Beijing, the capital of China. Two pilots, 10 cabin crew and 227 passengers were present on that flight. Most of the passengers belonged to China. Both the pilots were very experienced. 53-year-old Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah had 33 years of flight experience. While 27-year-old co-pilot Farooq Abdul Hameed was a junior pilot with seven years of flight experience. This aircraft was an 11-year-old Boeing 777 aircraft. In which there was no problem of any kind, nor was this aircraft a victim of any mechanical or electrical fault in the past. What I want to say is that it was completely a regular flight running between Malaysia and China. Which used to fly from Malaysia to China or back to Malaysia from China after flying for 5 hours and 34 minutes daily. But today was not a normal day for this flight, rather it was much more than abnormal. Of course, flight MH370 was supposed to fly for 5 hours and 34 minutes, but before takeoff, it was loaded with fuel, that was more than required. With which it could fly for 7 hours 41 minutes. That is, two and a half hours more than its actual requirement. It is also a routine practice of airlines to do so. So that if the plane is diverted owing to the bad weather/emergency then it could utilise the extra fuel. The day was 8th March 2014 and time was 12:42 AM when Flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur as per routine. The first pilot Zaharie was in direct contact with the Kuala Lumpur air traffic control tower before and after the take off. On takeoff, the aircraft turned its direction towards the South China Sea. And after 20 minutes i.e at 1:09 AM the transponder on the aircraft sent its current GPS location to the radar of the Kuala Lumpur Air Traffic Control Tower. This is the automatic function of the transponder to send its current location to the nearest radars after a short period. Till now everything was going according to plan 10 min after that, i.e. at 01:19 AM, when Flight MH370 left Malaysian air jurisdiction and entered Vietnamese air jurisdiction. The control tower of Kuala Lumpur contacted First Pilot Zaharie for the last time and said this- This meant that now Flight MH370 should contact the control tower of the Vietnamese city of Ho Chi Minh. First pilot Captain Zaharie heard this message and also replied to it. Neither the control tower nor did Captain Zaharie knew that this good night message was going to be the last message to be received from MH370. At this time, a full 37 minutes had elapsed since the flight took off. Now it normally happens that until the plane reaches its destination, it stays in contact with the air traffic control tower of any major airport coming in its way. And similarly, it was expected to happen here also. But everything that was going on normally till now, started becoming abnormal. Yes, exactly three minutes after his last message, ie at 01:21 am, flight MH370 suddenly disappeared from the radar. That is, the plane had completely disappeared from the radar of both Kuala Lumpur and Ho Chi Minh. But this was completely normal for Kuala Lumpur Tower. Because they thought that MH370 had now entered Vietnamese airspace, that's why it disappeared from their radar. But when the Ho Chi Minh control tower saw Flight MH370 disappearing from their radar, they felt something was wrong. They immediately tried to contact the captain, but no one responded. For the next 18 minutes Ho Chi Minh tower tried to contact MH370 but still got no response from the Captain. And then Ho Chi Minh tower contacted the Kuala Lumpur tower and briefed them with the situation. Now normally, in this condition the rescue centre has to be informed within 1 hour but the Kuala Lumpur control tower informed the Aeronautical Rescue Coordination Center after four hours. And by then it was too late. It was 06:15 AM and this was the time when MH370 was scheduled to land in Beijing. There was a hope that the aircraft might land in Beijing at the correct time. But no positive news came from there either. At 06:32 AM, a search operation has been started at the exact place from where the plane disappeared. 34 ships and 28 aircraft from seven countries started searching for Flight MH370 on the border of the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea. But unfortunately, there was no trace of the aircraft. By this time, the whole world had come to know about this incident. TV, news websites and social media were all showing only this news. During this, the investigation team of many countries also became a part of the search operation. No one was really able to understand the reason behind sudden disappearance of the aircraft from all the radars, And even if it had crashed on this area of the sea, being such a big aircraft it was expected some wreck/debris to be seen. This search operation continued for the next four days. But still, there was no trace of the aircraft. But then on the fourth day a news came which shook the entire rescue operation team. When Flight MH370 disappeared from the radar at 1:21 AM on 8th March, it had disappeared from the civilian radar but remained on the radar of the Malaysian military for the next 1 hour. And what happened after that was like this- After disappearing from the civilian radar, for a few minutes the aircraft started moving towards the right. And then took a U-turn and turned back to Malaysia. After 31 minutes the aircraft crossed the Malaysian city of Penang and then turned towards the Malacca Strait. Flight MH370 was last detected up to this point in the Indian Ocean as far as the range of military radar could detect. And the time was 02:22 AM. After this MH370 neither showed up on military radar nor on any civilian radar. The entire rescue team and every person associated with this plane were only trying to solve one mystery that where did the aircraft go? What bothered them more was that why did the plane took a sharp U-turn in the direction exactly opposite Beijing? The rescue team that was earlier looking for the plane in the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea Now they started their search in this part of the Indian Ocean. But surprisingly, there was no trace of the plane here too. After the next few days, another information surfaced and once again it changed the whole situation. The airplane disappeared from the military radar at 02:22 AM, but there was a satellite with which it was in constant contact. Let me update you here, that it is normal for Boeing airplanes to try to contact the satellite when their own communication system fails due to some reason. The plane automatically tried to contact a satellite INMARSAT 35,000 km away, after exactly every one hour. With the help of data saved on this satellite, experts performed a complex calculation. So finally the next move of Flight MH370 was also known. It was learned that Malaysian aircraft again took a turn after disappearing from military radar. And kept flying over the Indian Ocean in the same direction for the next five hours. At 08:19 AM, the aircraft tried to connect to the satellite for the last time. And this was the last signal from MH370. After this, neither did the plane contacted any other satellite nor did it showed up on any other radar. That is when the rescue team first started searching for the aircraft at that moment, the aircraft was actually flying. But its location was far away from there. Experts and the investigation team believe that the plane's connection to the satellite was lost after coming to this curved spot in the Indian Ocean, 2000 km west of Australia. That is, after taking-off from Kuala Lumpur, this plane took a full 8 hours to reach this curved spot. And the total fuel in the aircraft was also only this much. So there is a high chance that MH370 might have crashed into this curved spot due to running out of fuel. This highlighted Curved area of the Indian Ocean is bigger than the whole of India. And a deep-sea search operation was started here. It was very important to find MH370 because until the plane and its black box are found, it would remain unknown what happened inside the aircraft before the crash. The process of searching for the plane went on not just months, but for many years. But no clue of the plane was found. After three years the Deep Sea operation was finally stopped. In which more than $160 million were spent. No whereabouts of the plane were found during the search operation. But in 2015, a year after the plane's disappearance, the plane's right flaperon reached on the beach of the Island of Re-Union. This is the part of the plane that comes in handy when landing. When this flaperon was investigated, another horrible reality was revealed. Experts believe that this flaperon was not extended when MH370 crashed in the water. And sadly this means that while crashing on the water, the aircraft fell into the sea on its nose. Many other parts and debris of the plane were found from the shores of Africa during the next several years. But till date, there's no clue of the plane or the passengers. To this day, no one knows what might have happened inside Malaysian flight MH370 before it disappeared. Some investigators suspect that the plane was hijacked. While some believe that due to an electrical failure, the aircraft's contact with the outside world was broken and due to lack of oxygen, all the people inside the aircraft had fainted. Well, the actual reason, can only be known from recordings saved inside the black box of the plane. Which is missing somewhere in the Indian Ocean along with the plane. In February 2022, after full eight years of the disappearance of MH370, the aircraft was once again expected to be found. Richard Goufrey, a British retired aerospace engineer, has claimed that he have found out the actual location of the plane through Weak signal propagation analysis. and surprisingly, the pinpoint location which Richard has mentioned is present in the same curved area of ​​the Indian Ocean. Richard believes that the wreck of missing Malaysian Airlines is lying 4000 meters below the ocean at the exact point he had mentioned. This depth is the same as to where Titanic laid for 74 years, before it was discovered in 1985. Now how seriously do Malaysian authorities take the claim of this retired aerospace engineer and whether a new search operation is launched at this location or not, only time will tell. Hope you guys will like and share this space. My heartfelt appreciation for your loving comments. We'll meet you in another amazing article

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    DKPWritten by Dilip kumar padi

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