Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

The missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 has entered the day 44th and the mysteries are still surrounding. The flight was carrying 239 people including crews from 14 nations bound for Beijing Capital from Kuala Lumpur International Airport. It was reported that two of the passengers on board was travelling with stolen passports. The flight vanished from radars and lost contact with the control tower at 1.20 a.m. The aircraft used in the flight was a Boeing 777-200 ER and its registration number is 9M-MRO. The aircraft has flown many parts of the world. The pilot was an experienced pilot Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah with more than 8000 flying  hours and was assisted by the First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid.

Captain Zaharie (left) and co-pilot Fariq Abd Hamid (right)

A multinational Search and Rescue (SAR) operation was conducted. At the earlier time the aircrft went missing, the search efforts were conducted on the South China Sea, the spot where it was reported missing. The SAR operation was then moved to the Straits of Malacca after military radar was believed to detect an object flying along the straits. Then, the Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak said the aircraft would probably flew to the northern corridor which extends to Kazakhstan or it might be flying along the southern corridor, extending to the South Indian Ocean, to the west of Australia.

The wreckage of Air France flight 447 was discovered after two years from the day of accident. Yet, the missing of flight 370 was considered as the most mysterious case in aviation history even it has not yet pass 2 years.

On 24th March 2014,  Najib Razak announced that the flight ended in the Southern Indian Ocean. This statement was made based on investigation that was done towards the signal received by a British Inmarsat satellite in which the investigation and analysis method was never being used before. It was assumed that the flight ended with no survivors. Australia was appointed to lead the search operation in this area.

Few days later, four pings was detected by a Chinese vessel Haixun 01 and Australian HMS Echo. The pings was believed not from the nature, but it comes from a man made equipment. Thus, it was believed the pings comes from the aircraft's black boxes.

The search area was narrowed based on the analysis done towards the pings received. The search team faced a very difficult task since the South Indian Ocean is one of the remote places on earth and has a depth of 4500m. The battery of the black boxes can stand up to 30 days or more, depends on the condition. After narrowing the search area, the Bluefin-21 was used in the operation.

Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 ER with registration number 9M-MRO used in MH370