It is 10 years since the tragic and mysterious disappearance of Flight MH370: What is known today?
The modern Boeing 777-200ER plane, with 239 people on board, disappeared without explanation on March 8, 2014. Several pieces of debris have been found, although the crash site is still unknown. What will the new search proposed by Ocean Infinity be like?
It is the 10th anniversary of one of the greatest mysteries of world aviation: the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines' MH370 passenger flight on March 8, 2014.
The modern Boeing 777-200ER passenger plane, with 239 people on board, disappeared without any explanation. The multiple searches carried out in the last decade have not yet found the plane or the bodies of the victims.
In a commemorative event held earlier this week, the Minister of Transport of Malaysia announced a new impetus for another search. If the Malaysian Government approves it, the prospecting will be carried out by the American seabed exploration company Ocean Infinity, whose efforts were unsuccessful in 2018.
What happened to Malaysia Airlines flight MH370?
Charitha Pattiaratchi, Professor of Coastal Oceanography, University of Western Australia, reports in an article published in The conversation that the flight was scheduled to fly from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Air control lost contact with the plane 60 minutes after flying over the South China Sea.
Subsequently, it was tracked by military radars crossing the Malaysian peninsula and was located by radar for the last time over the Andaman Sea, in the northeast of the Indian Ocean.
Later, automated satellite communications between the aircraft and the British company's Inmarsat telecommunications satellite indicated that the plane ended up in the southeast of the Indian Ocean along the 7º arc (an arc is a series of coordinates).
This became the basis for defining the initial search areas by the Australian Air Transport Security Office. The first aerial searches were carried out in the South China Sea and the Andaman Sea.
To date, it is not known what caused the change of course and the disappearance of the plane.
The remains found so far from Malaysia Airlines flight MH370
Pattiaratchi details that ten days after the disappearance of the MH370, a search began in the southern Indian Ocean led by Australia, in which aircraft from several countries participated. This search continued until April 28 and covered an area of 4,500,000 square kilometers of ocean. But no remains were found.
Two underwater searches in the Indian Ocean, 2,800 km from the coast of Western Australia, have also not found indications of the scene of the accident.
The initial search in the seabed, led by Australia, covered 120,000 square kilometers and extended 50 nautical miles through the 7º arc. It lasted 1,046 days and was suspended on January 17, 2017. A second search carried out by Ocean Infinity in 2018 covered more than 112,000 square kilometers. It was completed in just over three months, but it didn't locate the remains either.
Although the main site of the accident has not yet been found, several remains have appeared in the years since the flight disappeared.
On July 30, 2015, a large piece of remains (a flaperon, a moving part of the wing of a plane) appeared on Reunion Island, in the western Indian Ocean. It was later confirmed that it belonged to the MH370. In the following months, more remnants of aircraft were found in the western Indian Ocean, in Mauritius, Tanzania, Rodrigues, Madagascar, Mozambique and South Africa.
The drift analysis of the University of Western Australia (UWA) predicted exactly where the floating remains of the MH370 in the western Indian Ocean would run. It also served as a guide for the American adventurer Blaine Gibson and other people to directly recover several dozen remains, three of which have been confirmed to be from the MH370, while several others are considered probable.
To date, these remains found in the western Indian Ocean are the only physical evidence found related to the MH370.
It is also an independent verification that the accident occurred near the 7º arc, since any remainder would initially flow to the north and then to the west, transported by the predominant ocean currents.
Why a new search for the MH370 now?
The new search proposed by Ocean Infinity has significantly reduced the target area within latitudes 36°S and 33°S. This is approximately 50 km south of the places where the UWA models indicated the release of debris along the 7º arch. If the search does not locate the remains, it could be expanded to the north.
Since the first underwater searches, the technology has improved enormously.Ocean Infinity uses a fleet of autonomous submarine vehicles of higher resolution. The proposed search will also use remotely controlled surface vessels.
In the search area, the ocean is about 4,000 meters deep. Water temperatures are from 1 to 2 °C, with scarce currents. This means that, even after ten years, the debris field would be relatively intact.
Therefore, there is a high probability that the remains of the shipwreck can still be found. Pattiaratchi affirms that if the search is successful in the future, this would mean a relief not only for the families of the deceased, but also for the thousands of people who have participated in the search work.