Details from www.bbc.co.uk

The known facts

On 8 March 2014 a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 en route from KL to Beijing disappeared in what are still considered to be unusual and very strange circumstances. It took off at at 00.41 and radio contact was lost after a routine call at 01.19.  A routine ACARS transmission was received at 01.07 but the 01.37 transmission was not received, and at around 01.20 the transponder stopped transmitting secondary information such as altitude and speed. At 01.21 the aircraft failed to check-in with ATC at Ho Chi Minh City. At 02.22 the a final primary radar return was received, the aircraft being off-track to the south of Phuket, having turned towards Lankowi.   Seven Inmarsat satellite pings were received between 02.28 and 08.11, giving a rough location to the NW of the Australian coast.  At take-off the aircraft would have had enough fuel for about eight hours flight, so the final communications fit in well with it running out of fuel.  A search commenced, clearly becoming much more difficult after the 30 or so days that the FDR and CVR sonar pinger battery would have run out.

On 29 July 2015, 16 months later, a piece of MH370’s wing washed up on Reunion Island. It was a flaperon, more commonly known as an inboard or high-speed aileron, and being hollow it had floated. It showed signs of impact damage, as would be expected if the aircraft had hit the sea at high speed.  My next article will discuss the various theories.

Martin Fiddler