On the 8th March 2014 a Malaysian Boeing 777 airliner code-named MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing, China. The aircraft carried twelve crew members and two hundred and twenty-seven passengers. It has not been seen since.
The aircraft apparently disappeared into thin air. The first forty minutes of the flight were routine. The Malaysian air traffic control passed the flight to the Vietnamese ATC via the aircraft’s captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, one of Malaysia’s most senior pilots. Zaharie never contacted the Ho Chi Min ATC and nothing more was heard from the aircraft. It literally disappeared into thin air.
Nine years later, we are no further forward in discovering what happed to that hapless plane and the 239 people on board. There have been a multitude of theories, some viable and others downright ridiculous. Even this writer put forth one viewpoint in a story entitled, “MH370-Flight To Armageddon.“
The truth is that no-one knows where the aircraft is, though scientific analysis indicates it eventually ran out of fuel and crashed in the Indian Ocean. Some twenty pieces of aircraft wreckage have washed ashore on Réunion, Madagascar and Mozambique. It is purported to have come from the stricken aircraft.
There is hope that a new search may commence within the next year or so. The original search team has stated they have new evidence come to light. As yet no-one, apart from the company involved, knows what that evidence might be.
Nine years on and still the relatives and loved ones of those on board have no more idea of what may have happened to them, than they did on the 9th March 2014.
It’s a sad indictment of humanity that we can allow such long and arduous suffering because governments don’t want to spend the money on continued searches.
Let’s ensure we don’t forget those unfortunates on board that doomed aircraft, and those left behind who are still grieving.