Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

MH370 debris: Timeline of missing Malaysian Airlines plane disappearance

MH370 is the only missing Boeing 777 in the world - if the debris is from this model of plane, it's possible that it came from MH370

Peter Woodman,Doug Bolton

Thursday 30 July 2015 08:58 BST

A policeman and a gendarme stand next to a piece of debris from an unidentified aircraft found in the coastal area of Saint-Andre de la Reunion, in the east of the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion. (YANNICK PITON/AFP)

It is almost a year and a half since Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 went missing. Here is a timeline of the main events over the last 17 months.

2014

March 8 - The Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 takes off from Kuala Lumpur at 12.41am local time bound for Beijing, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew.The plane is last seen on military radar at 02.14am, heading west over the Strait of Malacca. Half an hour later the airline reveals to the public that it has lost contact with the plane. The plane was due to land at around 6.30am.
March 10 - Vietnamese aircraft search for a plane door spotted in their waters but find nothing. A day later the hunt is widened to cover a 115-nautical mile radius involving 34 aircraft and 40 ships from several countries.
March 13 - Malaysian authorities expand their search for the missing jet into the Andaman Sea and beyond after acknowledging it could have flown for several more hours after its last contact with the ground.

A relative of an MH370 passenger cries shortly after the plane's disappearance (Feng Li/Getty Images)

March 15 - Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak says the missing airliner was deliberately diverted and continued flying for more than six hours after losing contact with the ground.
March 8 to April 24 - The search area covers the South China Sea, the Straits of Malacca, the Andaman Sea and the southern Indian Ocean.
April 24 - The search and rescue phase becomes a search and recovery phase, with it moving a few days later to an underwater phase using an autonomous underwater vehicle and a bathymetry survey covering an area around 430 miles (692km) long and 50 miles (80km) wide.
June 2014 - Australian authorities issue a preliminary report in which they theorise that MH370's crew became incapacitated, possibly due to oxygen starvation, with the plane continuing on autopilot.

Schoolchildren hold a vigil for the missing plane and its passengers (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

August 28 - Australia's deputy prime minister, Warren Truss, says the aircraft "might have turned south a little earlier than we have previously expected".
September 19 - After a four-month lull, it is announced that the underwater search, involving depths of up to 3.7 miles (6km), would resume at the end of September.
October 2014 - The new underwater search involves ships dragging sonar devices called towfish through the water about 330ft (100m) above the seabed to hunt for wreckage. The towfish are equipped with jet fuel sensors and can transmit data to those on board the vessels.

2015

January - Senior Boeing 777 captain Simon Hardy suggests the missing aircraft's final resting place is in the Indian Ocean just outside the far south-western edge of the core search area.
January 28 - Malaysia's Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) officially declares the incident "an accident". The DCA says it had concluded the aircraft exhausted its fuel "over a defined area of the southern Indian Ocean". The DCA adds that efforts to find the plane will continue.
March 7 - Malaysia's transport minister, Liow Tiong Lai, says data will be re-examined and a new plan formulated if the plane is not found by the end of May.

The wife of an MH370 victim holds a sign that reads 'Please bring back my husband' after the Malaysian Prime Minister cancels a press conference on the plane's disappearance (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

May 13 - A shipwreck is discovered in the search zone. The first detection of the wreckage on the ocean floor raised hopes it was MH370, but it was eventually revealed to be a ship.
20 June - The GO Phoenix, one of the ships working on the search, returns to port in Singapore and is demobilised from the search. No other ship takes its place.

Policemen and gendarmes stand next to a piece of debris from an unidentified aircraft found in the coastal area of Saint-Andre de la Reunion, in the east of the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion (YANNICK PITOU/AFP/Getty Images)

29 July - Suspected aeroplane wreckage washes up on Reunion, off the coast of Africa. Investigators start work to see if it comes from MH370.

PA

In pictures: Theories that could explain what happened to MH370

Show all 14

1/14In pictures: Theories that could explain what happened to MH370

In pictures: Theories that could explain what happened to MH370

Shot down in a military training exercise

While the Australian officials leading the search for MH370 say they remain “absolutely convinced” it ended up in the southern Indian Ocean, some passengers’ families – and theorists – distrust the unprecedented satellite data analysis involved. Among those who support this view are the British journalist and author Nigel Cawthorne, who has controversially already published the first book on the plane’s disappearance. e supports one theory, based on the eye-witness testimony of New Zealand oil rig worker Mike McKay, that the plane was shot down shortly after it stopped communicating with air traffic controllers. At the time there was a series of war games taking place in the South China Sea involving Thailand, the US and personnel from China, Japan, Indonesia and others, and Cawthorne has linked this to Mr McKay’s claims to have seen a burning plane going down in the Gulf of Thailand.

In pictures: Theories that could explain what happened to MH370

Stolen by Putin

Jeff Wise, a private pilot and science writer, claims he has evidence that the plane made its way to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, which is run by Russia as its largest space launch facility. He claims Vladimir Putin ordered Russian special forces to hijack MH370 and fly it to the spaceport, but admits he has 'no idea' why the Russian president would want to do such a thing

Getty Images

In pictures: Theories that could explain what happened to MH370

Flown north and shot down deliberately, prompting cover-up

At a stage in the investigation when it was believed the plane could have flown for some time from where it disappeared along either a northern or southern corridor, many posted on forums suggesting that if it had been the former we would never hear about what happened. Some still support this view, and former RAF navigator Sean Maffett told the BBC that after 9/11, any unidentified airliner entering the airspace of another country would lead to fighter jets being scrambled. “If the plane is in the northern arc it could easily have been shot down,” he said. This theory also involves a national – or possibly international – cover-up, based on the premise that no country would want to admit to shooting down an airliner full of passengers from all over the world.

In pictures: Theories that could explain what happened to MH370

Flown north in the ‘shadow’ of another plane

Another theory suggests that instead of flying south, the plane flew north in the “shadow” of another airliner around half an hour to an hour after dropping off civilian radar. The aviation blogger Keith Ledgerwood argued that MH370 and Singapore Airlines flight 68 were in the same vicinity at the time, and said: “It became apparent as I inspected SIA68's flight path history that MH370 had manoeuvred itself directly behind SIA68 at approximately 18:00UTC and over the next 15 minutes had been following SIA68.” By flying a short distance behind and most likely a little above the altitude of SIA68, also a Boeing 777, Ledgerwood said that it would be able to appear as a single blip on radar screens. SIA68 flew on to Spain – and this theory suggests MH370 could have branched off and landed in one of a number of locations across Xinjiang (north-east China), Kyrgyzstan or Turkmenistan. Experts have said that the idea sounds “feasible”, and that even if higher-resolution military radar was monitoring SIA68 operators might have dismissed the fact that there were two objects as an technical glitch or echo.

AP

In pictures: Theories that could explain what happened to MH370

Tried to land on a desert island beach

After reports that the plane had turned left shortly following its disappearance from civilian radar screens, speculation grew that it could have landed on a remote beach somewhere like the Andaman Islands, which lie between Indonesia and the coast of Thailand. Though CNN reported that locals dismissed the idea a Boeing 777 could land on an airstrip there undetected, the archipelago consists of hundreds of remote islands with some long stretches of sand. Former BA pilot Steve Buzdygan said it would be difficult – but not impossible – to bring a 777 down on a long deserted beach.

AP

In pictures: Theories that could explain what happened to MH370

Landed at a US military base

One of the more outlandish conspiracy theories that has gained some traction online is the idea that MH370 could have been “captured” and flown to a military base on the UK-owned tropical atoll of Diego Garcia, in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The base is run by the US, and some have reportedly said in forum postings that the Kremlin has put some credence into this possibility. Such is the strength of belief in this theory that the US government has been forced to issue a denial. A spokesperson for the US embassy in Malaysia told the local Star newspaper that there was “no indication that MH370 flew anywhere near the Maldives or Diego Garcia”. “MH370 did not land in Diego Garcia,” he added.

Nasa

In pictures: Theories that could explain what happened to MH370

Headed for a remote airport in Langkawi, Malaysia

One theory, put forward by another aviation blogger named Chris Goodfellow, has it that the sudden left turn came after major catastrophe knocked out a range of the plane’s electronics, from transponders to communications equipment. In this scenario and in the middle of the night, Goodfellow argued, the pilot would redirect towards the nearest safe airport. “This pilot did all the right things,” he said. “Actually he was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi, a 13,000ft (4,000m) strip with an approach over water at night with no obstacles. He did not turn back to Kuala Lumpur because he knew he had 8,000ft ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier towards Langkawi and also a shorter distance.” This theory assumes that the plane was in fact controlled manually once it disappeared – and that it did not make it to Langkawi.

In pictures: Theories that could explain what happened to MH370

A fire throughout the plane

Many theories accept that the Inmarsat satellite analysis is accurate – that the plane headed south into the Indian Ocean and flew on for hours before a final, partial “handshake” in a remote location thousands of miles off the west coast of Australia. The issue here becomes explaining what happened in the cabin between the last contact with flight controllers and the plane’s seemingly inevitable crash far out to see. One suggestion is that a fire broke out, not just in the cockpit but throughout the interior of the plane. The implication is that this resulted in the attempt to turn back, after which the fire killed those on board. This theory would then have it that the fire went out before damaging the exterior of the plane, which flew on autopilot until its fuel ran out. Yet such a fire would be expected to spread with at least some warning – and that surely would have given the pilots time to issue a mayday distress signal.

In pictures: Theories that could explain what happened to MH370

An explosion in the cockpit

The theory of a sudden explosion within the cockpit before the turn left could explain why there was no attempt to signal for help. Since 9/11 cockpits doors have been fortified to become extremely difficult to bypass, and such a sudden incident could perhaps have incapacitated both pilots while keeping out the rest of the crew. This explanation does not seem to tally with the claims of some Malaysian officials, however, that the change in direction was the result of “seven or eight keystrokes into a computer on a knee-high pedestal between the captain and the first officer”.

In pictures: Theories that could explain what happened to MH370

A struggle at altitude

Though Malaysian officials believe that the plane was deliberately diverted, and that its communications systems were turned off one after the other, a detailed background check into all 227 passengers has cleared all of suspicion. If, however, we do accept that the plane was the subject of a passenger hijacking, it remains to be explained why the hijackers did not try to do more than fly the plane into the middle of the southern Indian Ocean. One theory suggests that there was some kind of struggle for control of the plane that ultimately ended with mutual destruction. Further analysis of data by Malaysian officials suggests that the plane was flown erratically once it left civilian radar, climbing to 45,000ft before dropping very low. Buzdygan told the BBC he would resort to this sort of flying if faced with would-be hijackers. “I’d try to disorientate and confuse the hijackers by throwing them around,” he said.

Getty Images

In pictures: Theories that could explain what happened to MH370

A botched hijack attempt

The climb to 45,000ft could also have been carried out by the hijackers once they had taken control – in a bid to kill the passengers on board. At such an altitude it could be possible to depressurise the cabin, causing oxygen supplies to be deployed. These run out after 12-15 minutes and, if those flying the plane had access to another oxygen supply, could have been an attempt to prevent anyone intervening. Under this theory the suggestion is clearly that the attempt failed, killing the hijackers as well.

Getty

In pictures: Theories that could explain what happened to MH370

Pilot suicide

As part of the ongoing criminal investigation in Malaysia, police are looking into the state of mind and possible motives of the captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah and co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid. The Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar has said that “all possibilities” will be looked into, and there have been reports that Shah was going through a difficult marriage break-up.Yet such comments have been rubbished by the man’s relatives, who have described him since as a dedicated family man and model professional. Hugh Dunleavy, the commercial director of Malaysia Airlines, described Shah as a seasoned pilot with an excellent record. “There have been absolutely no implications that we are aware of that there was anything untoward in either his behaviour or attitude,” he told Reuters. “We have no reason to believe that there was anything, any actions, internally by the crew that caused the disappearance of this aircraft.”

In pictures: Theories that could explain what happened to MH370

Sabotage – for a life insurance scam or corporate attack

One of the other strands of the criminal investigation regards whether the plane was subject to some form of sabotage – either as part of a life insurance scam or over industrial espionage. Bakar said that when passengers and crew were being investigated, police were looking for “Maybe somebody on the flight has bought a huge sum of insurance, who wants family to gain from it or somebody who has owed somebody so much money, you know, we are looking at all possibilities.” There were also 20 employees of the US silicon chip company Freescale Semiconductor on board the plane at the time, and a retired Delta Airlines pilot has suggested the plane’s disappearance was an attempt to steal technology the engineers had applied – but not yet received – a patent for.

Corbis

In pictures: Theories that could explain what happened to MH370

A CIA cover-up

Finally, the former prime minister of Malaysia Mahathir Mohamad has waded in with his own theory – suggesting that, one way or another, the CIA is definitely hiding something. In a blog entry posted on 18 May entitled ‘Boeing Technology – What goes up must come down’, Dr Mahathir Mohamad makes ten claims including that the plane was taken over remotely by officials working for Boeing and the CIA. The plane is somewhere, maybe without MAS markings,” reads Dr Mohamad’s post on chedet. “Someone is hiding something. It is not fair that MAS and Malaysia should take the blame,” 88-year-old Dr Mahathir, who was Malaysia's prime minister between 1981 and 2003, alleges. “Airplanes don’t just disappear,” he said, concluding: “For some reason the media will not print anything that involves Boeing or the CIA. I hope my readers will read this.” Boeing have denied Dr Mohamed’s theory.

HENNY RAY ABRAMS/AFP/Getty Images

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies