Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370/MAS370) was a scheduled international passenger flight operated by Malaysia Airlines. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared on 8 March 2014, after departing from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing with 239 passengers and crew members on board. Malaysia’s Prime Minister, Najib Razak, has stated that the aircraft’s flight ended somewhere in the Indian Ocean, but no further explanation has been given. Official announcements have been questioned by many critics, and several theories about the disappearance have been proposed. Some of these have been described as conspiracy theories. The incident remains under investigation.
10 Things You Didn’t Know About Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
• Fact #1 : All Boeing 777 commercial jets are equipped with black box recorders that can survive any on-board explosion
No explosion from the plane itself can destroy the black box recorders. They are bomb-proof structures that hold digital recordings of cockpit conversations as well as detailed flight data and control surface data.
• Fact #2: All black box recorders transmit locator signals for at least 30 days after falling into the ocean
Yet the black box from this particular incident hasn’t been detected at all. That’s why investigators are having such trouble finding it. Normally, they only need to “home in” on the black box transmitter signal. But in this case, the absence of a signal means the black box itself — an object designed to survive powerful explosions — has either vanished, malfunctioned or been obliterated by some powerful force beyond the worst fears of aircraft design engineers.
• Fact #3: If a missile destroyed Flight 370, the missile would have left a radar signature
One theory currently circulating on the ‘net is that a missile brought down the airliner, somehow blasting the aircraft and all its contents to “smithereens” — which means very tiny pieces of matter that are undetectable as debris.
The problem with this theory is that there exists no known ground-to-air or air-to-air missile with such a capability. All known missiles generate tremendous debris when they explode on target. Both the missile and the debris produce very large radar signatures which would be easily visible to both military vessels and air traffic authorities.
• Fact #4: Many parts of destroyed aircraft are naturally bouyant and will float in water
In past cases of aircraft destroyed over the ocean or crashing into the ocean, debris has always been spotted floating on the surface of the water. That’s because — as you may recall from the safety briefing you’ve learned to ignore — “your seat cushion may be used as a flotation device.”
Yes, seat cushions float. So do many other non-metallic aircraft parts. If Flight 370 was brought down by an explosion of some sort, there would be massive debris floating on the ocean, and that debris would not be difficult to spot. The fact that it has not yet been spotted only adds to the mystery of how Flight 370 appears to have literally vanished from the face of the Earth.
• Fact #5: The location of the aircraft when it vanished is not a mystery
Air traffic controllers have full details of almost exactly where the aircraft was at the moment it vanished. They know the location, elevation and airspeed — three pieces of information which can readily be used to estimate the likely location of debris.
Remember: air safety investigators are not stupid people. They’ve seen mid-air explosions before, and they know how debris falls. There is already a substantial data set of airline explosions and crashes from which investigators can make well-educated guesses about where debris should be found. And yet, even armed with all this experience and information, they remain totally baffled on what happened to Flight 370.
• Fact #6: If Flight 370 was hijacked, it would not have vanished from radar
Hijacking an airplane does not cause it to simply vanish from radar. Even if transponders are disabled on the aircraft, ground radar can still readily track the location of the aircraft using so-called “passive” radar (classic ground-based radar systems that emit a signal and monitor its reflection).
Thus, the theory that the flight was hijacked makes no sense whatsoever. When planes are hijacked, they do not magically vanish from radar.
• Fact #7: Some Passengers Did Not Board The Plane
The Malaysian government is currently investigating the fact that five passengers who were booked for the flight did not get on the plane. They checked in but did not board the plane and their luggage was removed beforehand.
• Fact #8: Search Teams Were Looking In The Wrong Place For Five Days
As shown in the map below, the plane was last tracked at the Strait of Malacca between the Indonesian and Malaysian coasts. The plane turned around near Vietnam when it’s transponder stopped working and headed hundreds of miles away from its original flight path. Search teams had been searching the place where the plane’s transponder stopped working instead of near the Strait of Malacca.
• Fact #9: The aircraft deviated from its flight path and was picked up by a military radar a few hours later.
New data reveals that the aircraft changed its planned course and took a u-turn towards Andaman Islands. This theory was confirmed by a Malaysian military radar that picked up the airplane hours after it lost contact with air traffic control.
• Fact #10: The plane could have flown as far as India Or Pakistan
New evidence reveals that the aircraft kept flying for 5 hours after it lost contact with the air traffic control. Plotting the aircraft fly time of 5 hours, the aircraft could have ended up in India or border areas of Pakistan.
10 Things You Didn't Know About Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
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