Satpute

Atharva Satpute

Mrs. Ryan

EngA10

9th January 2020

The Disappearance of Flight 370

The disappearing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH 370 is one of the world’s greatest

mysteries that have been left unsolved. Although a multimillion-dollar investigation was carried

out by Malaysian, Chinese and Australian investigators, there was no evidence of what occurred

to the flight. However, experts have analyzed the events that occurred to the plane while it was

still in communication, making it viable that the disappearance of flight 370 was a hijacking by

the pilot himself.

Flight 370 was a regular flight that was providing nonstop service from Kuala Lumpur to

Beijing. The plane was a Boeing 777 200-ER carrying 227 passengers, who were mostly Chinese

nationals, along with 12 crew members. On 8th March 2014 at exactly 12:42 am, flight 370 took

off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport and made a heading towards Beijing. There were

two pilots onboard: 1st officer Fariq Hamid and Zaharie Ahmad Shah, who was the commanding

pilot. The 1st officer was a trainee, who was being mentored by commanding Pilot Zaharie

Ahmad Shah. At 1:01 am, the plane reached its cruising altitude of 35,000 feet. Exactly 6

minutes later, the plane’s ACARS system, which transmits data on flight performance sent a last

transmission and then was turned off. After that, the last communication signal from the plane’s

crew was received at 1:19 am, resulting in the Malaysian military using their radars as an attempt

in finding the plane. When the aircraft’s location was established by the Malaysian military, it
was discovered that the plane made a U-turn and flew southwest, then northwest over the

Adaman Sea, which is when the military couldn’t track the plane anymore. The plane was then

tracked by a geostationary satellite, which received updates every hour. At approximately 8:11

am, the satellite too, lost connection with the plane, due to a manual shutdown of the transponder

onboard. The last known location of the flight was somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

After the vanishing of the flight, many investigations have taken place. At first, many

argued that there was a mechanical issue with the plane prior to takeoff, resulting in the pilot

being unable to control the plane. However, the head of the safety investigation team, Mr. Kok

Soo Chon said: “The plane was well maintained”. Based on Mr. Kok’s statement, it is less likely

that a well-maintained plane would crash due to a mechanical error. Even if that was the case,

the argument still wasn’t feasible, primarily due to the fact that the plane had passed all

mechanical checks before it took off. Due to this, the likelihood of flight 370 crashing due to a

mechanical error was very slim.

Another reason the plane could have crashed was due to a remote hijacking, which is a

form of hijacking where a person can control the plane remotely. However, a report from the

Malaysian government clearly stated that no such equipment or technology capable of a remote

hijacking was installed on the plane, ruling out the argument.

The investigation then targeted the plane’s cargo, which revealed that there were 221kgs

of lithium-ion batteries onboard, along with 5 tonnes of mangosteens, which is a fruit that is very

popular in south Asia. It could be argued that the lithium-ion batteries and the mangosteens

could’ve combined during flight and combusted, making the plane a giant, flying explosive.

Even though this was a very feasible argument, the chances of this occurring were very slim,

because the report by the Malaysian government officials said: “the items were in a hold
compartment together, but the batteries and fruit were wrapped up and in separate containers”

(Malaysian Government).

The investigation then targeted the early stages of the flight, until it lost communication.

It was first suspected that there could have been a fault in the autopilot, but after a thorough

investigation, the report revealed that the turns and banks the aircraft made were too sharp and

narrow for an autopilot to accomplish. This was also tested on various simulators, and it proved

to be true. Due to this, the attention was then turned to the commanding pilot, because the only

other way that the plane could’ve accomplished those sharp turns was if it was controlled

manually. A further investigation was then carried out at the home of Zaharie Ahmad Shah. It

was then revealed that there was a flight simulator in his house that had 7 coordinates that

created a flight path to the Indian ocean, which was where flight 370 had crashed. Another link

that was made was that the only way that the plane’s transponder could be shut off was

manually, which means that there was someone onboard that turned it off. In addition, the

transponder was located in the cockpit of the Boeing 777, making it within arm’s reach of the

pilot.

Although the disappearance of flight 370 still officially remains a mystery, the events

that unfolded in the final minutes of the aircraft’s communication with the outside world are the

only pieces of concrete evidence that the world has to determine what exactly happened to the

plane. Events such as the sharp, manual turns of the aircraft, the shutdown of the transponder,

and the flight simulator found in the pilot’s home all make it very probable that Captain Zaharie

Ahmad Shah indeed caused one of the world’s most mysterious disasters.
 Works Cited

Langewiesche, William. “What Really Happened to Malaysia's Missing Airplane.”

The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 1 July 2019,

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/mh370-malaysia-airlines/590653/.

Ramzy, Austin. “No Plane. No Remains. And Now, No Real Answers on Malaysia Airlines

Flight 370.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 30 July 2018,

www.nytimes.com/2018/07/30/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-flight-370-report.html.

Baker, Sinéad. “The New MH370 Report Quashed a Wild Theory That the Plane's Cargo

of Fruit and Batteries Turned It into a Giant, Flying Bomb.” Business Insider, Business

Insider, 1 Aug. 2018, www.businessinsider.com/mh370-report-quashes-theory-that-

batteries-and-fruit-cargo-caused-explosion-2018-8.

Gregersen, Erik. “Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Disappearance.” Encyclopædia

Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1 Mar. 2020,

www.britannica.com/event/Malaysia-Airlines-flight-370-disappearance.