Five chilling reasons MH370 STILL hasn’t been found as new search for vanished plane set to be launched 10 years on

WHEN flight MH370 vanished from the sky, many thought the doomed passenger jet with 239 on board would be found within hours.

But ten years of heartbreak and blunders means the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines flight remains one of the world’s biggest aviation mysteries.

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As the 10th anniversary of the plane’s disappearance approaches, The Sun explores failings that meant vital clues may have been lost in the first few hours, days and months of the investigation.

On March 8th, 2014, the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur airport with 12 crew and 227 passengers bound for Bejing.

The last known communication with the Boeing 777 jet was a message to air traffic control around 38 minutes into its flight at around 1.20am.

Moving from Kuala Lumpur to Ho Chi Minh airspace, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah was heard saying: “Goodnight. Malaysian three seven zero.”

But the captain never made contact with Ho Chi Minh airspace – and moments later, the plane vanished from radar.

The official narrative suggests the plane made a bizarre U-turn, flying across Malaysia, turning northwest at Penang Island, and across the Andaman Sea after being tracked by military radar.

But data from an Inmarsat satellite communications network later revealed that the plane flew till at least 8.19am, flying south into the Southern Indian Ocean.

On March 24, the Malaysian government concluded “Flight MH370 ended in the Southern Indian Ocean”.

Yet several searches have been unsuccessful in recovering the wreckage.

Many theories emerged about what could have happened to the doomed flight in its final hours – including a suicide mission by the pilot, a ghost flight on autopilot after the cabin depressurised, or even a hijacking.

Nearly a decade on, Malaysian prime minister Anwar Ibrahim has now said his country would be willing to reopen the investigation into the disappearance of the flight if there was compelling new evidence.

But the initial response to the missing jet was plagued with blunders, aviation experts have said, leading to key information being held from loved ones and vital clues being lost for good.

Air traffic control failings

An official 2018 report revealed that on the night of the plane’s disappearance, air traffic control failed to initiate “emergency phases” after the flight vanished from radar.

After the last known communication with the pilot at 1.19am, it took the air traffic control crew nearly 20 minutes to raise the alarm after it failed to appear in Vietnam airspace.

At 1.38am, the crew at Ho Chi Minh asked about the plane’s whereabouts when it made no verbal contact.

Planes in the area were instructed to try and reach out to the pilot as Malaysia air traffic control desperately searched and contacted their counterparts in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Phnom Penh.

They did not activate the search and rescue operation until 5.30am – and failed to speak with military authorities whose radar had unknowingly tracked the Boeing 777 in the four-hour window.

At 2.03am, Malaysian air traffic control told Vietnam that the plane was in Cambodian airspace – before admitting it was a projection based on the flight path and not based on any signal being found.

Planes communicate with ground crews via a transponder and Acars systems – and both had been turned off around the same time the plane vanished.

But the Acars system continued to make contact with satellites – revealing that the plane flew on for several more hours until 8.19am.

Malaysia’s civil aviation regulator resigned when the report’s findings on the failings of air traffic control were released.

Military radar

When MH370 made a bizarre U-turn across the Malay Peninsula, it was tracked by the country’s military radar at around 2.14am before turning at the captain’s hometown on the Island of Penang and across the Malacca Strait.

But the Malaysian military did not report that they had spotted the plane until days later.

Thailand’s military also revealed that their own military radar had detected the passenger flight – but it did not provide information at the time as they “did not pay attention to it”.

Air Vice Marshal Montol Suchookorn of the Royal Thai Airforce said an unidentified aircraft was detected at 1.28am, 8 minutes after MH370’s transponder was turned off.

At the time, countries appeared reluctant to release information that was collected from their military radar in a bid to keep capabilities top secret.

The plane was also not picked up by Australia’s long-range JORN over-the-horizon radar system, which happened to be turned off on the night the doomed jet vanished.

Speaking at the time, aviation expert David Learmount wrote on his well-respected blog that countries were withholding information on MH370 out of fear it would expose holes in their air defence systems.

Similarly, submarines patrolling the South China Sea could have had information on any water impact in the area – but feared giving up their location.

The delay hampered the initial search and meant crews were looking in the wrong spot over the South China Sea until it was moved to the Southern Indian Ocean a week later.

Experts fear the blunders may have led to the loss of key clues on the surface of the water in the first few days of the jet’s disappearance.

Distrusting countries

Another factor that impacted the search for MH370 was the distrust between Malaysia and other countries involved in the hunt for the plane.

In the days after the disappearance, the Malaysian government released inaccurate and incomplete information with civilian officials contradicting military leaders.

Not only was there internal confusion, but the acting Malaysian transport minister was forced to deny tensions with other participating countries.

But experts suggested trust issues over the sharing of intelligence hampered the search efforts.

Bridget Welsh, an associate professor of political science at Singapore Management University, told AFP at the time: “The issues of protecting territory, security intelligence and interests are starting to win over the common goal of finding the plane and closure.” 

When Chinese satellite images appeared to show debris in the South China Sea, Malaysia said they had been released in error and showed no such thing.

China bit back and accused Malaysia of relaying information in a “chaotic” fashion and urged them to take charge and be more transparent.

Amid the tensions, most countries appeared to search independently and Vietnam scaled back its search operation after claiming that there was a lack of communication with Malaysia.

The lack of coordinated response meant that crucial evidence could have been overlooked or withheld.

Of the 239 onboard just 50 were Malaysian – 153 were Chinese, Seven Indonesian passengers, along with six Australians, Five from Indians, four French, and three Americans.

The rest were Ukrainian, Taiwanese, Russian, Kiwi, Dutch, Iranian, and Canadian.

This meant a joint investigation team was assembled with specialists from Malaysia, China, the UK, America and France.

But on March 17, Australia took charge of the search, rescue, and recovery operation.

No more searches

Despite several searches for MH370, the plane has never been recovered and all onboard are presumed dead.

From March 18 to April 28, 2014, 19 vessels and 345 sorties by military aircraft searched a 1.8million square mile area of the Southern India Ocean to no avail.

The search continued, headed up by the Australian Government agency the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC), and by 2017 it was suspended when nothing was found.

A former naval officer who was part of the search was brought in to help scan an area 57 miles wide by 400 miles long pinpointed by experts from satellite data and flight simulations.

Speaking exclusively to The Sun, Peter Waring explained how it quickly became clear they weren’t looking in the right spot – but no matter what new evidence arose, the search area remained the same.

He was also adamant that the area was searched so precisely that it could not possibly be there.

Peter said: “I was there for a year, we started the underwater search and the strategising about where we would search and why, it was enough time to realise that we were not gonna find the aircraft.

“It was blatantly clear to me and others that we were looking in the wrong place. 

“On the one hand, It was a slow-moving bureaucratic political process that wanted something really easy and neat which was a box drawn on a map. 

“On the other hand you had one of the most complex mysteries that’s ever occurred and the amount of information was so scarce, so to try and create something out of nothing was really difficult. 

“We presented this clean nice neat box for the politicians and then it was obvious to us we might have to go back on our assumptions as the analysis developed and new evidence arose.”

He added: “There was a lot of political pressure to have milestones, part of my job was to report each day on how much of the search area had been covered the previous day. 

“The metric of success was only how much of that box we had completed, not if the box was in the right place to begin with.”

In January 2018, the private American firm Ocean Infinity continued searching the same 9,700 square mile area before extending its perimeter to 43,000 square miles while using eight autonomous underwater vehicles.

By June, the contract with the Malaysian government ended and the mission to find any MH370 debris was unsuccessful.

But Malaysia seemed reluctant to spend any more time searching for the lost jet – despite experts and loved ones demanding answers.

In March 2022, Ocean Infinity said it was committed to resuming the search in 2023 or 2024 with its new ‘Armada’ vessel pending approval from the Malaysian government.

Hiding the truth?

In the days after MH370 went missing, family members became increasingly frustrated with the lack of news.

It sparked protests in Kuala Lumpur, with some accusing the government of a cover-up when they concluded that the plane had been lost without providing any physical evidence.

Even more shocking was that families received a text message to say their loved ones were presumed dead.

Even after the 2018 report confirmed the plane’s route was changed manually, loved ones have been left with no answers as to what happened in the plane’s final moments.

Some experts, including British aerospace engineer Richard Godfrey, have cast doubt about Malaysia’s commitment to expose the cause of MH370’s demise.

Any further search is stalled without approval from the Malaysian government.

In November, more than 40 Chinese relatives signed an open letter to the Malaysian Prime Minister urging a new hunt for MH370.

Some even offered to fund the search themselves, asking for “effective communication” from government officials.

The Malaysian Transport Ministry and Malaysian Airlines both declined to comment on the hearing.

This week, Malaysian prime minister Anwar Ibrahim said: “We have taken the position that if there is a compelling case, evidence that it needs to be re-opened, we’re certainly happy to reopen.

“Whatever needs to be done must be done.”

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