Netflix has dropped a gripping new series that recalls the true story of an aircraft that went missing almost ten years ago. Released on Wednesday (March 8) to coincide with the ninth anniversary, MH370: The Plane That Disappeared explores the disappearance, and the aftermath, of the ill-fated Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
There have been countless theories around the plane’s disappearance, with Netflix describing it as a “great modern mystery”. Using powerful archives to reconstruct the night of the disappearance, the docuseries gives viewers the chance to explore three of the most contentious theories about the tragic event.
It also features interviews with family members, scientists, journalists, and the ordinary people around the world who refuse to give up hope of an explanation. But what exactly happened to MH370 and when did it disappear?
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What happened to MH370 and when did it disappear?
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went missing mid-flight in the early hours of March 8, 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia to Beijing Capital International Airport in China. At 1.22am – around 40 minutes after takeoff – the Boeing 777 suddenly disappeared from Air Traffic Control radar.
It was tracked by military radar turning sharply from its planned northeastern course and heading west, until it left the range of the military radar at 2.22am while over the Andaman Sea in the northeastern Indian Ocean. The aircraft, presumed crashed, sparked a huge search that became the most expensive in aviation history.
It focused initially on the South China Sea and Andaman Sea before analysis of the plane’s automated communications indicated a potential crash site somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean. An Australian-led search scoured 46,000 square miles of the southern Indian Ocean and cost 200m Australian dollars (£100m).
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A private hunt by Texas-based company Ocean Infinity later searched more than 37,000 square miles of sea. Despite the costly and lengthy search – the last of which ended in 2018 – MH370 has never been found.
On March 24, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak confirmed that investigators had concluded the aircraft crashed in the southern Indian Ocean. Based on new analysis by British satellite firm Inmarsat and the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB), the firms “concluded that MH370 flew along the southern corridor, and that its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth,” Mr Najib said.
“This is a remote location, far from any possible landing sites. It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that, according to this new data, flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean.”
Since 2015, several pieces of debris confirmed as from the aircraft have washed up on the coast of Africa and on Indian Ocean islands. Investigators have said the cause of the plane’s disappearance cannot be determined until the wreckage and the plane’s black boxes were found.
In 2020, former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott claimed the “top levels” of the Malaysian government long suspected the plane’s disappearance was down to a mass murder-suicide by the pilot. Speaking in a Sky News documentary, Abbott – who was PM when the aircraft disappeared – said high-ranking Malaysian officials believed veteran pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, deliberately downed the jet.
He said: “My very clear understanding, from the very top levels of the Malaysian government, is that from very, very early on, they thought it was murder-suicide by the pilot. I’m not going to say who said what to whom, but let me reiterate, I want to be absolutely crystal clear, it was understood at the highest levels that this was almost certainly murder-suicide by the pilot.”
A Malaysian-led independent investigation report released in 2018 said the plane’s course was changed manually, but did not name a suspect and raised the possibility of “intervention by a third party”. The pilot’s family has long denied he was suicidal.
The 2018 investigative report said there was no evidence of abnormal behaviour or stress in the two pilots and none of the passengers had pilot training. MH370 disappeared with 239 people on board, made up of 12 Malaysian crew members and 227 passengers from 14 different nations.
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