MH370 disappeared in 2014 with 239 people on board and has never been found, but the final words of the pilot continue to haunt those grieving the loss of their loved ones
The infamous flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing vanished without a trace with 239 people on board – after the pilot uttered eerie five final words.
In 2014, the Boeing 777 transmitted its final message two hours after departure, when the Malaysian pilot delivered a chilling last five words that have baffled investigators ever since.
Zaharie Ahmad Shah signed off from Malaysian airspace as he prepared to enter Vietnamese airspace, radioing air traffic control with the words: “Goodnight Malaysia three seven zero.”
They would prove to be the last words ever heard from the cockpit. One of the most enduring mysteries surrounding the disappearance of MH370 is how a large commercial aircraft such as the Boeing 777 could go missing in an age of unparalleled aerial monitoring.
The eerie silence that followed sparked a torrent of controversy. Speculation ran rife, with some suggesting the aircraft may have been brought down by bad actors, with accusations levelled variously at the Chinese, Americans, and Russians. As the fruitless search presses on, so do the theories.
The Malaysian government has approved multiple fresh searches for the missing aircraft, joining forces with Ocean Infinity, a British search firm that works on a “no find, no fee” arrangement. The hunt has concentrated on the Southern Indian Ocean, widely believed to be where the plane crashed.
The plot thickened when the plane “went dark” upon entering Vietnamese airspace on that fateful night, prompting speculation that its onboard systems were intentionally switched off from inside the cockpit.
Despite the failure of its operating system, a considerable volume of data remains which has helped in mapping the aircraft’s flight path.
This information has proved invaluable in planning previous searches across the Southern Indian Ocean and has been central to shaping theories regarding the plane’s ultimate fate, including Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) data, radar data, Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) data, and Inmarsat satellite data.
This data consistently suggests that the aircraft continued flying for more than seven hours over the Southern Indian Ocean before it finally disappeared — most likely plunging into the ocean’s depths, where any further detection became virtually impossible.
As a result, experts have painstakingly combed through this data, seeking conclusions rooted in evidence rather than conjecture and conspiracy theories. Simon Maskell, a distinguished professor in autonomous systems at the University of Liverpool, revealed to The Diplomat details of pioneering research his team undertook on MH370.
Employing data referred to as Weak Signal Propagation Reporter (WSPR), which harnesses low-frequency signals monitored by amateur radio operators over considerable distances, Maskell and his colleagues investigated the enigma thoroughly.
Through examining years of information from the WSPRnet database, the team succeeded in dismissing numerous implausible theories regarding the doomed flight’s fate.
Maskell explained that, according to their findings, three credible scenarios exist. He said: “The analysis we did indicated that there are three explanations that appear to be approximately equally consistent with the information we had at the time: there is a chance that a freak accident occurred and the crew were unable to communicate or land the aircraft elsewhere,” he stated.
“[Or] it was a murder-suicide with the murderer alive when the descent occurred, [or] a murder-suicide with the murderer no longer alive when the descent occurred.”
This emerges amid increased theories surrounding the murder-suicide hypothesis, which gathered momentum after Malaysian officials uncovered a flight simulator at pilot Shah’s home containing a route strikingly similar to MH370’s final known path over the Indian Ocean.
There is no concrete evidence or indication to suggest that Shah, or his co-pilot, had any premeditated intentions to hijack the aircraft and deliberately crash it.
Nevertheless, the murder-suicide theory has arguably attracted the most scrutiny over the years, potentially owing to the absence of any other credible explanations.
Maskell highlighted that alternative theories were less consistent with the available data. It is worth noting that many searches have been undertaken over the years, including a three-year operation by Australian authorities covering more than 120 square kilometres of the Southern Indian Ocean, all without success.
“Given the plane has not been found and the area that has been searched is underpinned by assumptions that involve there being no human intervention during the descent, it now seems more plausible that there was human intervention during the descent,” Maskell said.
“That therefore slightly nudges up the probability that there was someone alive in the cockpit during the descent. However, all three explanations remain commensurately likely.”
Whether the fresh search will yield any results remains to be seen, but the absence of definitive answers 11 years after the aircraft’s disappearance highlights the profound complexity of the case.
“While it transpires that our calculations indicate that an accident would be a commensurately rare event to there being a successful attempt at murder-suicide,” Maskell said, “all the explanations imply that something like this happens very rarely indeed.”
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