- The final MH370 report found a critical turn was made manually, but it's still unknown who was responsible for that decision.
- Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 disappeared without trace in March 2014, with the loss of 239 lives.
- A four-year search of the Indian Ocean covered more than 200,000 square km (77,220 square miles) of the seabed, but despite changing theories on its location and some debris finds, the fuselage has not been found.
- The Malaysian government ended the search in May and today released its final report into the disappearance.
- The full Malaysian report can be found here.
Malaysian authorities say they “cannot determine with any certainty” why Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014.
“The team is unable to determine the real reason for the disappearance,” lead investigator Kok Soo Chon said releasing the 495-page report on Monday afternoon, Malaysian time.
The key finding of the Malaysian investigation was that the plane turned back, and that had to be done under manual control.
But there was failures by those on the ground after the plane diverted from its planned flight path, with Ho Chi Minh failing to notify Chinese authorities when the plane failed to make contact with them, and then air traffic controllers failed to initiate emergency procedures, thereby delaying any search and rescue.
The report dismisses a number of conspiracy theories about the plane and its pilots, and ruled out plane malfunction as a contributing factor.
He left open the possibility that a third party was involved in the demise of the plane.
And while today’s conclusions were billed by the Malaysian government as the final report into the mystery, Kok said it wasn’t the last word because “the answer can only be conclusive if the wreckage is found”.
The Boeing 777 left Kuala Lumpur at 12:41am local time, bound for Beijing, with 12 crew and 227 passengers on board. It has not been found, despite the biggest and most expensive search of aviation history.
Releasing the report, Kok said it was prepared in consultation with seven other countries, including Australia, USA, China, Indonesia and the UK, who endorse its findings.
He said the investigation concluded that the plane had turned back after take off, which aligns with tracking by civilian and military radar.
“We can conclude that MH370 had turned back and the turn back was not because of anomalies in the mechanical system. The turn back was made not under autopilot but under manual control,” he said.
“We cannot exclude the possibility that there was unlawful interference from a third party.”
The pilot was Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah from Penang, 53, a 33-years veteran of the airline, with First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, with seven years experience, in the cockpit beside him.
The investigation has not found any anomalies or abnormal circumstances around the lives of the two men in charge.
They examined Shah’s flight simulator at home, but found “no unusual activities other than game-related flight simulations”.
Claims that Hamid’s mobile phone was used found that it was only a “heat signal”, which Kok said “was just a signal heat to show that the phone was turned on, but there was no call”.
The majority of the passengers, 152, were Chinese citizens, followed by 38 Malaysians. People from 13 other countries were on board, including seven Indonesians, six Australians, and other individuals from France and the US. Twelve crew members were on board as well.
Air traffic control made its final voice contact with the plane at 01:19am local time. There were no transmissions received after the first 38 minutes and systems designed to automatically transmit the aircraft’s position failed to operate for reasons unknown. The last positively fix was made by surveillance systems at the northern tip of Sumatra.
A satellite “handshake” with the plane occurred at 08:19:29, around two hours after it was due to land in Beijing, but its location has baffled investigators, sparking the search covering more than 200,000km² of the Indian Ocean seabed.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which spent three years coordinating the international search for MH370, released its final 440-page report into the mystery in October last year concluding that what happened to the Boeing 777 will remain unknown until the plane is found.
Today Malaysian authorities met with the families of those lost to explain the findings of the government’s final report, ahead of its release.
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