Relying mostly on analysis of data from the Inmarsat satellite with which the aircraft last communicated, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) proposed initially that a hypoxia event was the most likely cause given the available evidence, although no consensus has been reached concerning this theory among investigators. A second search launched in January 2018 by private contractor Ocean Infinity also ended without success after six months. Several pieces of debris washed ashore in the western Indian Ocean during 20 many of these were confirmed to have originated from Flight 370.Īfter a three-year search across 120,000 km 2 (46,000 sq mi) of ocean failed to locate the aircraft, the Joint Agency Coordination Centre heading the operation suspended its activities in January 2017. The lack of official information in the days immediately after the disappearance prompted fierce criticism from the Chinese public, particularly from relatives of the passengers, as most people on board Flight 370 were of Chinese origin. It focused initially on the South China Sea and Andaman Sea, before a novel analysis of the aircraft's automated communications with an Inmarsat satellite indicated that the plane had traveled far southward over the southern Indian Ocean. The search for the missing airplane became the most expensive search in the history of aviation. With all 227 passengers and 12 crew aboard presumed dead, the disappearance of Flight 370 was the deadliest incident involving a Boeing 777, the deadliest of 2014, and the deadliest in Malaysia Airlines' history until it was surpassed in all three regards by Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down while flying over Ukraine four months later on 17 July 2014. It left radar range 200 nautical miles (370 km 230 mi) northwest of Penang Island in northwestern Peninsular Malaysia. The aircraft was lost from ATC's secondary surveillance radar screens minutes later, but was tracked by the Malaysian military's primary radar system for another hour, deviating westward from its planned flight path, crossing the Malay Peninsula and Andaman Sea. The crew of the Boeing 777-200ER, with registration mark 9M-MRO, last communicated with air traffic control (ATC) around 38 minutes after takeoff when the flight was over the South China Sea.

It has not been determined what caused its disappearance. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 ( MH370/ MAS370) was an international passenger flight operated by Malaysia Airlines that disappeared from radar on 8 March 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia to its planned destination, Beijing Capital International Airport in China.

Aircraft crashes atc communications