The mystery of flight MH370: How on earth, with all our technology, do we lose a giant plane? (Updated)

It’s now been almost a week since flight MH370 disappeared without trace. From official Malaysian sources, there is still no news to report. According to an exclusive report by Reuters, however, some investigators are now fairly certain that the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 did in fact fly on for another four hours. Apparently, shortly after the last time it appeared on civilian radar (around 1:30am local time), MH370 turned west and started following navigational waypoints (Vampi, Gival, Igrex) usually used by flights towards the Middle East and Europe. According to two sources speaking to Reuters, the fact that the airplane simply vanished from air traffic control and civilian radar would suggest that someone on board the plane disabled its communication systems. If this new information is correct, MH370 actually disappeared somewhere in the Indian Ocean, near the Andaman Islands. Reuters says Malaysian authorities are now asking for radar data from Thailand, Indonesia, and India — all of which may have picked up flight MH370 after it vanished.Updated @ 09:40 March 13: The farcical hunt for Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 continues. US investigators believe the plane may have continued for four further hours after its last sighting — a claim that Malaysian authorities have strongly denied. Malaysian authorities say they have spoken to both Boeing and Rolls-Royce, and they both confirmed that the plane’s last ACARS transmission was at 1:07am, and at that time the plane was completely healthy. The radar blips at 2:15am (near the Strait of Malacca) and again at 2:30am, after being confirmed and then denied, are being investigated yet again. China released satellite images of the purported wreck of MH370 (below), but Malaysia’s transport minister said they were released by mistake and ”did not show any debris from MH370.” Read on for previous updates and the original story.

Updated @ 14:10 March 12: As darkness falls over south-east Asia, the fifth day of the MH370 search-and-rescue mission draws to a close. There’s still absolutely no indication of what happened to flight MH370, nor where it landed. The Malaysian authorities continue to flail embarrassingly. Crazy theories continue to be proposed. The search-and-rescue efforts now comprise of 42 ships and 39 aircraft from 12 different countries. DigitalGlobe is providing high-res satellite imagery of the search area, with analysis of the imagery then being crowdsourced by Tomnod — and apparently there’s now a third possible location where the plane might’ve disappeared. So far, though, all of these efforts have turned up absolutely nothing.Updated @ 08:25 March 12: This morning, as the search for flight MH370 heads into its fifth day, Malaysian authorities held a press conference in Kuala Lumpur to discuss the latest developments. Sadly, there wasn’t really much to report. The Malaysian military are now denying that MH370 was tracked to the Strait of Malacca. The search area now covers 27,000 square nautical miles, 12,000+ in the Strait of Malacca and 14,000+ in the South China Sea (the plane’s last known location). Rolls-Royce, which made the Boeing 777′s Trent 800 engines says it received two batches of engine diagnostic data from the plane after takeoff and during the cruise, as part of the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) – but there’s nothing unusual about that. It does imply, however, that Malaysian Airlines — which received the full ACARS report — would know by now if the plane was suffering from any issues. As the airline hasn’t said anything about the ACARS report, it’s probably fairly safe to assume that all systems were functioning normally.

Updated @ 16:35 March 11: The fourth day of the MH370 search-and-rescue mission has come to a close, and we’re still no closer to finding the missing plane. The search area has been expanded from 50 nautical miles (57 miles; 93km) to 100 nautical miles. It has also come to light that MH370′s co-pilot, Fariq Abdul Hamid, was extremely unprofessional during a flight in 2011. On a flight from Phuket to Kuala Lumpur, Hamid invited two South African teenagers into the cockpit, where they remained for the entirety of the flight, while he and the pilot smoked cigarettes while flying the plane. Whether this new finding has any bearing on the fate of MH370, we’ll have to wait and see.

Updated @ 08:40 March 11: As the Malaysia Airlines MH370 search-and-rescue mission enters its fourth day, we still know almost nothing about the fate of the plane and the 239 people on board. Two passengers were travelling with stolen passports, but Interpol says they weren’t terrorist threats. According to Malaysian military radar, it now seems likely that MH370 turned back after its last contact with air traffic control, possibly crashing into the Strait of Malacca. We still have no idea why it turned back, or where the plane ended up.

Updated @ 19:30 March 10: Very little new information has come to light since this story was first published this morning. Despite some oil slicks and debris being found in the South China Sea, authorities have confirmed that they didn’t originate from the MH370. Numerous experts have attested to the Boeing 777′s excellent reliability and safety record, and puzzlement at how it could vanish from the skies. We still have no idea how or why the plane disappeared, nor where it crashed. There are very, very few reasons for a modern plane to suddenly disappear. Read on for the original story.

Three days ago, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished from radar off the south coast of Vietnam in the South China Sea. 239 people were on board — and at this point, it is presumed that they have all perished in some kind of disaster. A massive search and rescueeffort involving 40 ships and 34 aircraft from nine different nations has yet to discover any sign of the missing aircraft. For me, this is almost incomprehensible: Despite all of the awesome technology that mankind has developed, it’s still possible for a Boeing 777-200 with 239 people on board to vanish. For me, it’s mind blowing that all we have to go on is the plane’s radar signature — and even then, that last radar reading was so poor that the search area is thousands of square miles of open water. Surely, given the fact that we can track a damn smartphone anywhere on Earth down to a few meters, there’s a better way of keeping track of missing aircraft?

In the words of Malaysia’s civil aviation chief, the fate of MH370 is “a mystery.” The Boeing 777 took off from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia en route to Beijing, was cruising normally at 35,000 feet… and then disappeared. There was no distress call. The weather was fine. The plane’s last known position, via radar, was just south of Vietnam in the South China Sea — which is where search efforts have been focused so far — but one theory suggests that the plane turned back just after the last radar ping, meaning the plane could be hundreds of miles away in the Strait of Malacca. In the absence of any other information, there is speculation that the plane was target of a terrorist attack.