Search for Flight MH370 Might Finally Be Reopened After 10 Years
On March 8, 2014, one of the strangest and most disturbing mysteries in aviation history took place. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, carrying 239 passengers and crew aboard, left Kuala Lumpur on a trip for Beijing, China- but it never arrived at its destination. Somewhere out over the ocean, the plane inexplicably dropped off the radar and disappeared completely. Though debris believed to be from the flight has been found in the decade since, the plane itself was never recovered.
For years, the families of the missing MH370 passengers and crew mourned without closure, knowing that their loved ones were almost certainly dead but never knowing what happened. However, on March 3, nearly ten years to the date since the flight went missing, Malaysian government officials announced that they may have cause to re-open the search for the missing plane.
While most of the world gave up hope of ever finding Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the loved ones of the flight's missing victims never gave up hope, and now, they have a second chance for closure. According to @abcworldnews, the Austin, Texas-based robotics company Ocean Infinity claims they have new evidence to find the plane's location, believed to be somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean. If that information is deemed credible by the Malaysian government, they may resume the search for the missing plane after nearly a decade of frustration.
The families of the missing now wait with bated breath to see if Ocean Infinity's claims hold any water, and whether or not their government will take action if they do. According to Time Magazine, Malaysia's transport minister Anthony Loke has invited Ocean Infinity to brief him, and if he finds their claims credible, he will "seek Cabinet's approval to sign a new contract to resume the search." But the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly for the waiting loved ones, making the wait all the more torturous. Bai Zhong, whose wife was on MH370, was quoted by NBC News expressing his unending desire for closure:
"“No matter if it is 10 years, 20 years or more, as long as we are still alive... we will not cease to press for the truth. We believe the truth will eventually come to light."
The Little We Know About MH370
The lack of information about MH370's has proven agonizingly frustrating. Again, the flight was supposed to travel from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, a very routine flight on that route. What happened next that night seemingly makes no sense.
Following CNN's timeline of the MH370 disappearance, the plane took off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport around 12:41 am local time, crossing over into Vietnamese airspace around 1:19 am. Two minutes later, the transponder (the device that sends out radar "blips" with the flight's identifying information) turned off, and within ten minutes of that, it had disappeared from all radars. The plane reportedly reappeared briefly on military radar around 2:15 am over the Strait of Malacca, flying hundreds of miles in the opposite direction of its intended course. That was the last time the aircraft was ever tracked.
Why the plane went so far off course and where it eventually crashed are still mysteries. The turning off of the transponder and the plane's complete U-turn indicate that the flight was either hijacked or sabotaged by the captain, but without eyewitness testimony, it's next to impossible to know for sure. The final crash site is believed to be somewhere far out over the remote southern Indian Ocean, thousands of miles southwest of Australia. If Ocean Inifity's claims are credible, their information could be the final piece of the puzzle needed to finally conclude this tragic mystery.
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