An early flight out of Malaysia Airline took off early on the morning of March 8th for Beijing. It never arrived.
Less than an hour into the flight, the air traffic controllers in Subang, Malaysia lost all communications with the flight while it was flying over the sea between Malaysia and Vietnam.
No distress signal was sent. There was no sign of a struggle. The plane just disappeared.
Malaysian military officials cited that the plane may have turned around just before it lost control. However, the pilot never called it in, so there is no knowing of where it turned to.
Aboard the plane were 227 passengers and 12 crew members. There were five passengers that were younger than five years old.
Passengers aboard the plane spanned from all over the world. They were from China, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, Ukraine, the Netherlands, Malaysia, Canada, Russia, and the United States. Most of the passengers were Chinese.
Contributing to the mystery, there were two people on stolen passports aboard the plane. They hid under the disguises of two men from Austria and Italy.
With those stolen passports, the two men bought two one way tickets– one with a final destination in Germany and the other in Denmark.
Because the two passports were stolen by Iranians, terrorism on the plane was one theory. However, it was determined that these Iranian men were asylum speakers, not terrorists.
The crew was not a novice crew. There were over 21,128 flying hours between the pilot and first officer. So it is a mystery as to what went on inside this experienced cockpit when the plane lost contact.
So far, the area where the 12 country crew of 42 ships and 39 planes should be looking for the missing plane is unclear. The search area is currently 27,000 square miles of both sea and land.
The reason the search area is so large is because there is strong reason to believe that the plane veered hundreds of miles off course. However, it is unclear in which direction the plane veered off.
The plane’s transponders also stopped working.
Transponders that stop working often are signs of a hijacking or a catastrophic power failure.
As the search continues and the lack of information remains, families and friends of the missing have become angry.
As most of the passengers were Chinese, the Chinese government urges Malaysia to speed up its search efforts.
As the search drags and no new clues turn up, the families and friends and citizens of the world will just have to be patient for answers.
For more detailed information on the missing plane, click here.
