MH370 Mystery Solved? A Comprehensive Case Study of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
INTRODUCTION
When waiting for our family and friends at the airport, so many thoughts come in our mind of what will happen when we will see them?
How will we hug them or what will we talk with them? At that time every moment of waiting seemed very heavy.
Now if this wait never ends, the flight we are waiting at the airport may never land and we are told that flights has disappeared somewhere in the sky. And if days, months, and years pass away while waiting for our loved one.
Our today’s case study is about one such flight which did take off, but never landed back. It just disappeared no where in the sky. To know more, please stay tuned.
Case Study
8 March 2014, Malaysia’s Kuala Lampur International Airport.
Malaysia Airlines flight number MH 370 was preparing to go to Beijing in China.
This aircraft of Boeing 777 series registered under the name 9 M – MRO, which was about 11 years and 10 months old.
53-year-old Malaysia captain Zahare A was the captain of this flight.
Captain Zahare A joined Malaysia Airlines as a cadet pilot in 1981, and after gradually completing his pilot training, he was promoted to second officer in 1983.
He was then promoted to captain of the Beoing 737 in 1991 and after that in 1996 he was appointed captain of the Airbus A330 and Boeing 777 Due to his successful career and flying experience of about 18365 hours, Captain Zahare A was also known as an experienced flying instructor and seasoned flying examiner.
27-year-old first officer Fariq A was accompanying the captain as co-pilot.
First officer Fariq A also started his flying career in 2007 as a cadet pilot in Malaysia Airlines In November 2013, he started his training as the first officer for Boeing 777.
Today was his last flight as a first officer trainee, after which he was to be officially appointed as the first officer. In total, pilot Fariq A had gained about 2763 hours of flying experience in his career so far.
Slowly all the passengers and crew members started boarding the flight. On that day, Flight 370 had 12 crew members along with 227 passengers.
After completing all its ground tasks in a normal manner, the plane started its roll off process at the airport at around 11.48 pm.
And Slowly flowing the taxi way, the flight reaches runway 32 R. After the permission of ATC tower at around 12:45 in the night, the flight takes off from Kuala Lampur International Airport.
Following the instructions given by the airport ATC tower, the flight reaches a height of about 18000 feet.
After this the flight is connected to the radio frequency of Kuala Lampur ATC for its next directions.
At around 12:45 in the night, Kuala Lampur ATC instructs Flight 370 to fly at an altitude of 35000 feet. By gradually increasing its height, the flight reaches a height of 35000 feet.
At around 1.20 am, the flight exits the Kuala Lampur ATC radar range and enters Ho Chi Minh’s radar area.
2 minutes later, the flight appears on Kuala Lampur ATC’s radar for a short while and 10 seconds later the flight 370 again disappears from Kuala Lampur ATC’s radar screen.
After disappearing from the radar screen, the ATC controller tries to locate the flight on the radar screen with the help of the transponder fitted on the Flight, but again no signal is received.
Here it is suspected that perhaps after this the transponder system of Flight 370 was shut down.
Although the flight disappeared from civilian radar , a nearby military radar was still able to track Flight 370.
According to the data of military radar, the flight first takes a right turn and then takes a left turn and turns back in the south west direction.
When flight 370 changes its route without the permission of the ATC tower, the Vietnamese ATC tower gets suspicious. ATC controller ask the captain of another plane flying in the same airspace to contact Flight 370.
The captain manages to connect to Flight 370’s radio, but all he can hear is strange whispers.
Flying at 33,000 feet between 1:30 and 1:35 in the night, Flight 370 was still flying over the Peninsula region in a southwest direction.
Meanwhile, the radar of the nearby ismail petra airport shows an un-identified object on its screen 4 times, which is believed to be flight 370.
After this at about 1.52 am, the flight is recorded passing over the southern shore of Penang island.
From here this flight takes a right turn and passes over Vampi and Pulaw waypoints of malacca and this is the last location where flight 370 is located at 2:22 am in the night.
After this this flight is not visible on any radar At 5:30 am, about 4 hours after the last contact with the flight was made, the Kuala Lampur Aeronautical Rescue Coordination center begins a search for Flight 370.
According to its schedule, this flight was to reach Beijing at 6.30 am.But at 7:30, Malaysia Airlines issues a media report announcing that there is no contact with flight 370 since 1:22 in the night and the government has started search and rescue operations.
Search and resue operation was started immediately in the area of Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea.
But even after 10 days have passed, there was no trace of flight MH 370.
But ten days after this accident, the INMARSAT satellite company in Britain got such information which shocked the whole world.
According to their satellite database records, even after disappearing from military radar, flight MH 370 continued to fly over the Indian Ocean for about 6 hours
Actually, the sensors fitted in the engine of Flight 370 were continuously sending some signals to the satellite. But no accurate information about the location of the plane was being received from these signals.
According to satellite data, the plane sent signals to the satellite for the last time at 8.10 am.
Flight MH 370 was supposed to land at Bejing airport at 6.30 am, but according to the satellite signal, this flight was flying till 8.10 am, which means that this would be the time when the flight’s fuel ran out and it must have crashed.
The estimated position of the plane was by calculating the time taken during the signal transmission between the satellite and the plane.
According to these calculations, 7 large area circular areas were determined, in which flight MH 370 was estimated to be.
According to the last circular area, this plane can be anywhere from Kazakhstan to the southern end of the Indian Ocean. Finding the plane in such a large area was a very difficult task in itself.
Along with Malaysia, many other countries took part in this investigation and the most difficult and expensive search operation in the history was started.
Between March 18 and April 22, in an area of more than 4.6 million square kilometers, 19 ships and more than 345 air flights tried to find Flight 370. But unfortunately, neither the plane nor any kind of debris was found.
In the last phase of the search, sonar investigation of an area of about 1800 square kilometers was also done in the sea area of Australia so that any debris of this plane could be detected, but nothing found.
And finally on 17 January 2017, after 2 years and 10 months of this incident, when no information about flight 370 was found, this search operation was forced to stop.
According to the ATSB report published on October 3, 2017, the cost of this search operation was approximately 155 million US Dollar.
According to this report, an area of 25000 square kilometers was searched for this operation.
In January 2018, a private agency named Ocean Infinity started the investigation again.
But even after searching an area of 1 lakh 12 thousand square kilometers, they could not find anything. And after this, on 9 June 2018, this private search operation was also closed.
According to some reports published in the media, in case of any human hand in this incident, the first suspicion of the Malaysian police was on the side of Captain Zaharie.
According to a leaked document in January 2016, during the investigation, the FBI team recovered a flight simulator from the home of Captain Zaharie, whose database found the same flying route on which the plane was last found.
However, the ATSB termed the suspicion on Captain Zaharie as baseless, saying that the flight map found in the personal flight simulator at the pilot’s home is normal and should not be viewed with suspicion.
But the International Investigation Committee has never ruled out the possibility that Captain Zaharie may have deliberately crashed Flight 370 under a well-thought-out plan.
Although some people also claim that Captain Zaharie very carefully crashed the plane in the sea in such an unknown place that the entire plane should be immersed in the sea without breaking so that even its pieces could never be found.
Finally, in July 2018, the official report on the disappearance of Flight 370 was released by Malaysia’s Ministry of Transport. And as it seemed, in this report also no information was given about the disappearance of the plane.
In his report, the investigator said that due to non-recovery of the black box or flight data recorder of the plane, it is not possible to tell any reason for the disappearance of this plane.
But it is very difficult for the family members of the passengers traveling in the plane to believe that in today’s digita world where the whole world is connected with internet and satellite communication, how such a big and modern plane can disappear in the sky.
And the news of some conspiracy in this accident keeps coming on the internet and social media. But there is no official information about this flight till date.
According to some media reports, so far 27 such pieces of the plane have been found on different islands, which probably belong to this plane. But it is very difficult to say how much truth is there in these reports.
If any of our loved ones die, then considering it as God’s wish, we slowly recover from that tragedy.
But if it’s not sure whether that person is alive or dead, And we just keep waiting for any news about that person, then imagine how difficult would it be to live with this constant feeling of confusion
