The chronological story of MH370’s disappearance, from airport security footage to in-flight communication – and the possibility of exploring a different search zone

ELEVEN years ago today, Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur Airport bound for Beijing with 239 passengers onboard. 

Eerie footage from airport cameras shows the pilot and co-pilot being frisked before boarding the flight.

But less than an hour into its doomed flight it would vanish from radar systems and into oblivion. 

Both the aviation industry and passengers worldwide were stunned by the idea that a Boeing 777 could vanish without a trace.

Despite numerous search efforts, the disappearance of the aircraft has puzzled experts and left families of the passengers without closure for more than ten years.

In the weeks, months and days that followed, a series of bizarre clues came to light, each more baffling than the last. 

Satellite data showed the plane had continued to fly for several hours towards the Southern Indian Ocean.

The pilot’s home flight simulator, shown below, was programmed to fly to an unknown destination in the Southern Indian Ocean until fuel exhaustion.

And several pieces of debris that washed up on shores raised more questions than answers.

A renewed search mission is underway, presenting a final opportunity to unravel the mystery of MH370 and offer resolution to one of the most significant enigmas of our time.

The £55million hunt by underwater robotics company Ocean Infinity is underway, covering an area mostly explored in previous searches. 

Marine tracking data shows the Ocean Infinity vessel Amarda 7806 going back and forth over a previously searched area in the Southern Indian Ocean.

Former naval oceanographer Peter Waring, who was part of the search for MH370 in 2014, told The Sun that he was hopeful the plane could be found despite skepticism.

He also believed that the search team could move onto other areas mapped out by different experts as part of the latest hunt.

Although it’s yet to be seen whether they will go elsewhere after the initial 15,000sqkm…from what I can tell, [the search is] a bit of a mix of redoing both areas covered originally by the ATSB search and also areas that were covered by Ocean Infinity.

Why the lack of transparency, if the intent is to try and keep their options open by allowing themselves the opportunity to do the first 15,000sqkm and then move elsewhere, which I think makes a lot of sense.

If anyone were to ask my opinion on what they should do, I would say that that they should visit all of the identified hotspots, including that by identified by Simon Hardy.

The Sun previously spoke to Boeing pilot Simon Hardy, pictured here, about his proposed search area just beyond the 7th arc.

Experts from an independent group and those who believe WSPR technology holds the key have also mapped out areas where they think the jet could be found.

On the 11th Anniversary of MH370’s shocking disappearance, The Sun revisits the fateful day the doomed flight was lost. 

March 8 2014

MH370 is scheduled to depart Kuala Lumpur Airport in the early hours of Saturday morning bound for Beijing, China. 

The flight was a regular red-eye trip and one of two daily trips operated by the airline, taking five hours and 34 minutes, landing at 6.30am. 

Onboard were two pilots, 52-year-old Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, pictured here.

And co-pilot 26-year-old First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid, seen here:

There were also 10 cabin crew and 227 passengers who were mostly Chinese and Malaysian.

12.42am 

The Boeing 777 takes off from runway 32R climbing to 18,000ft. 

The co-pilot makes contact with air traffic control before take-off, while the Captain speaks after the departure. 

At 12.46pm, the plane is cleared to reach 35,000ft – the crew confirm altitude twice, once at 1.01am and again at 1.08am. 

1.06am

The plane makes its final transmission before its disappearance – an automated position report sent using the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System known as ACARS. 

The message includes data such as fuel remaining, flight origin, destination and real-time tracking. 

1.19am

The final verbal communication with the plane also takes place – Captain Zaharie acknowledges a transition from Kuala Lumpur airspace to Ho Chi Minh air traffic control. 

Listen here:

The crew should have signalled to Ho Chi Minh as the plane entered Vietnamese airspace, but it failed to do so. 

1.20am 

MH370 is seen in Kuala Lumpur air traffic control radar heading towards the waypoint IGARI in the Gulf of Thailand, but five seconds later the jet vanishes from the screen.

It also disappears from Ho Chi Minh’s radar at the same time. 

MH370 was gone for nearly 20 minutes before air traffic controllers realised it had vanished from screens, according to a Malaysian Government report.

It also took a further four hours to launch a rescue operation.

Ground crews attempt to use secondary radar to track the aircraft, which relies on a signal from a transponder onboard the plane, but the transponder is no longer functioning.

The plane is offline and is flying completely dark 39 minutes into its doomed flight.

Ground crew desperately begin trying to make contact with the vanished plane.

1.30am 

Around the same time, the Malaysian military’s primary radar tracks MH370 making a sharp right turn before turning left towards the South West and across the Malay Peninsula. 

This information doesn’t come to light until days after the plane’s mysterious disappearance, hampering the search and sparking backlash.  

A passing aircraft attempts to make contact with MH370 to relay the message from Vietnamese air traffic control that they should reach out. 

They use the international air distress frequency to make contact – a band reserved for emergency communications between aircraft. 

But the captain of the nearby plane is only able to hear static and “mumbling”. 

From 1.30am to 1.50 am, civilian primary radar at Sultan Ismail Petra Airport, Malaysia, tracks an unknown aircraft on four occasions. 

1.52am

The Malaysian Airlines plane is tracked passing just south of the island of Penang before flying across the Malacca Strait. 

2.20am 

The last known radar detection with flight MH370 was on the edge of Malaysian military radar systems northwest of Penang airport, flying at an altitude of 29,500ft. 

In the days after, other countries were reluctant to release radar information that could help the MH370 search, fearing it could give national security secrets to enemy states.

But Vietnam later revealed that the plane had been spotted turning back towards the West and informed Malaysian officials on March 8th. 

The flight was not detected by Australia’s long-range JORN system, which has a range of 1,900 miles when it was mysteriously not in operation on the night of the disappearance. 

2.25am  

Five minutes later the plane’s satellite communications system suddenly reboots and sends a login request which is relayed to ground stations via an Inmarsat satellite. 

The British company would provide key clues to MH370 investigators showing the plane flew for several hours into the Southern Indian Ocean in the days that followed. 

After logging on to the network, the comms system responded to almost hourly requests from the Inmarsat satellite for the next six hours.

The pings were recorded as a series of “arcs” labelled 1 to 7, as shown below.

The plane is believed to have crashed near its final ping location, somewhere near the 7th arc.

2.39am 

A call is made to the cockpit, which is unanswered, and another call made at 7.13am also rings out.  

8.19am  

The plane makes its final logon request an hour and 40 minutes after its scheduled arrival time in Beijing. 

An eerie image shows the arrivals board at Beijing airport on March 8th marked as delayed.

It is the last piece of data received from the aircraft and it did not respond to a status request from the Inmarsat satellite at 9.15am. 

MH370 AFTERMATH 

At around 5.30am local time, Kuala Lumpur air traffic control initiated its search and rescue protocol and four hours later Malaysian Airlines released a statement confirming they were now searching for the missing jet. 

On March 9, the Royal Malaysian Air Force announced that military radar may have tracked MH370 travelling over the Andaman Sea. 

After this information came to light, the search, that had originally launched in the South China Sea, was extended. 

Eventually satellite data from the British company Inmarsat suggested the plane turned towards the Southern Indian Ocean and flew on for several hours. 

The plane has remained missing for over a decade despite numerous searches, but a £55million search by underwater robotics Ocean Infinity is currently underway. 

It could be the last ever search, after the same area in the Southern Indian Ocean has already been combed twice. 

Around 15,000sqkm of the search area is new, according to Peter.

It’s believed the team could be hunting areas of difficult terrain that may have been missed when the seabed was previously scoured. 

Speaking about the launch of the new search, Peter added:

I had mixed feelings, firstly, happy that another effort was underway.

Also a little skeptical about where they’re searching and what I would describe as a bit of a lack of transparency around that.

And thirdly, I think if we don’t find the aircraft, if they don’t find it this time around, I think that would leave things in a pretty bad, not necessarily a final [search] but a pretty bad state and so I worry about the emotional toll that might take on everyone involved, of course, but primarily the family members.

So there’s a lot of reward on offer if they’re right, and I hope they are. But there’s also a great risk of it putting things back even further.

Having been involved in the previous ATSB search for the missing plane, Peter says that crews may be feeling differently about the hunt this time around.

He said:

I spoke to some of the guys that were out there for their first effort, and there was, I think, a sense of excitement.

I’m not entirely sure how the crew is made up now. Obviously, they’re running these minimally manned vessels, which are quite innovative and groundbreaking.

I think it’s probably a little bit lonelier out there than it would be usually on a ship.

I’m sure they’re very excited to be back out there, and I know that everyone at Ocean Infinity was really disappointed when they left the search last time, and they’ve been waiting for the opportunity to get back out there.