The pilot of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 made his final radio contact with the words "Goodnight Malaysia three seven zero" moments before the Boeing 777 vanished without a trace in 2014, carrying 239 passengers and crew.
The flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing sent its last transmission two hours after take-off, as Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah signed off from Malaysian airspace and prepared to cross into Vietnamese airspace. Those words proved to be the final communication ever heard from the flight deck.
The Mystery of the Vanished Aircraft
The disappearance of such a large commercial aircraft in an era of unprecedented aerial surveillance remains one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history. The unsettling silence that followed unleashed a wave of theories, with some claiming the plane may have been brought down by hostile forces, with blame directed variously at the Chinese, Americans, and Russians.
The mystery deepened when the plane "went dark" upon entering Vietnamese airspace, sparking speculation that its onboard systems were deliberately disabled from inside the cockpit.
Data Analysis and Search Efforts
Despite the malfunction of its operating system, a substantial amount of data remains, including Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) data, radar data, Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) data, and Inmarsat satellite data. This information has assisted in charting the aircraft's flight path and has been fundamental to forming theories regarding the plane's ultimate fate.
This data consistently indicates that the aircraft continued flying for more than seven hours over the Southern Indian Ocean before it finally vanished, most likely crashing into the ocean's depths. The Malaysian government has sanctioned several new searches for the stricken aircraft, partnering with Ocean Infinity, a British deep-sea exploration company operating on a "no find, no fee" basis. The search has focused on the Southern Indian Ocean, widely considered to be the most likely crash site.
Three Plausible Scenarios
Simon Maskell, a distinguished professor in autonomous systems at the University of Liverpool, disclosed to The Diplomat details of groundbreaking research his team conducted on MH370. Utilising data known as Weak Signal Propagation Reporter (WSPR), which draws upon low-frequency signals tracked by amateur radio operators across vast distances, the researchers managed to rule out numerous far-fetched theories.
Maskell revealed that, based on their findings, three plausible scenarios remain. He said: "The analysis we did indicated that there are three explanations that appear to be approximately equally consistent with the information we had at the time: there is a chance that a freak accident occurred and the crew were unable to communicate or land the aircraft elsewhere."
"[Or] it was a murder-suicide with the murderer alive when the descent occurred, [or] a murder-suicide with the murderer no longer alive when the descent occurred."
This comes amid growing speculation surrounding the murder-suicide theory, which gained traction after Malaysian authorities discovered a flight simulator at pilot Shah's home containing a route bearing a striking resemblance to MH370's last known trajectory over the Indian Ocean. There remains no concrete evidence or indication to suggest that Shah, or his co-pilot, harboured any premeditated intentions to hijack the aircraft and deliberately bring it down.
Continued Uncertainty
Maskell emphasised that alternative theories were less aligned with the available evidence. Many searches have been conducted over the years, including a three-year operation by Australian authorities spanning more than 120 square kilometres of the Southern Indian Ocean, all without success.
"Given the plane has not been found and the area that has been searched is underpinned by assumptions that involve there being no human intervention during the descent, it now seems more plausible that there was human intervention during the descent," Maskell said. "That therefore slightly nudges up the probability that there was someone alive in the cockpit during the descent. However, all three explanations remain commensurately likely."
Whether the renewed search will produce any findings remains uncertain, but the lack of conclusive answers 11 years after the aircraft's disappearance underscores the extraordinary complexity of the case. "While it transpires that our calculations indicate that an accident would be a commensurately rare event to there being a successful attempt at murder-suicide," Maskell said, "all the explanations imply that something like this happens very rarely indeed."
