Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Disappearance Theories
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Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370/MAS370) was an international passenger flight operated by Malaysia Airlines that disappeared on 8 March 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia to its planned destination ...
disappeared on 8 March 2014, after departing from
Kuala Lumpur , anthem = '' Maju dan Sejahtera'' , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Malaysia#Southeast Asia#Asia , pushpin_map_caption = , coordinates = , su ...
for
Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
, with 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board. Malaysia's former
Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
, Najib Razak, stated that the aircraft's flight ended somewhere in the Indian Ocean, but no further explanation had been given. Despite searches finding debris considered with strong certainty to originate from the crash, official announcements were questioned by many critics, and several theories about the disappearance were proposed. Some of these theories were described as
conspiracy theories A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources: * * * * The term has a nega ...
.


Background

Victims' relatives questioned the veracity of the
Malaysian government The Government of Malaysia, officially the Federal Government of Malaysia ( ms, Kerajaan Persekutuan Malaysia), is based in the Federal Territory of Putrajaya with the exception of the legislative branch, which is located in Kuala Lumpur. Mala ...
's statements about the demise of the aircraft, and organized a protest at the Malaysian embassy in
Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
with the goal of forcing the Malaysian government to reveal any withheld information about Flight 370's whereabouts. Rob Brotherton, a lecturer in psychology at
Goldsmiths, University of London Goldsmiths, University of London, officially the Goldsmiths' College, is a constituent research university of the University of London in England. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by the Wo ...
, wrote that conspiracy theories emerge immediately after any catastrophe occurs and conclusive information about why they do so remains unavailable.
Andrew Leonard Andrew Leonard (born 1962) is an American journalist who writes feature articles for ''San Francisco'' and contributes to Medium. From 1995 to 2014 he wrote for ''Salon.com''. He has also written for ''Wired''. Career Leonard is credited with co ...
wrote that conspiracy theorists were bolstered by the revelation of new satellite data two weeks after the flight disappeared that had been hidden from the public. Other factors involve the lack of a
distress signal A distress signal, also known as a distress call, is an internationally recognized means for obtaining help. Distress signals are communicated by transmitting radio signals, displaying a visually observable item or illumination, or making a soun ...
from the plane. According to
Barbara Demick Barbara Demick is an American journalist. She was the Beijing bureau chief of the ''Los Angeles Times''. She is the author of ''Logavina Street: Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood'' (Andrews & McMeel, 1996). Her second book, '' Nothing to En ...
of the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'', critics of the Malaysian government's statements also found support in the
Joint Agency Coordination Centre The Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) is an Australian government agency which was established on 30 March 2014 to coordinate search and recovery operations for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared on 8 March 2014 and was soo ...
's announcement on 29 May 2014 that the plane was not in the search area authorities had been combing since April 2014. Searches discovered debris considered to originate from the crash with strong certainty.


Criticism and response

Conspiracy-focused internet sites claim that the official statement that the plane crashed into the Indian Ocean is "a blatant cover-up." They note that a
Boeing 777 The Boeing 777, commonly referred to as the Triple Seven, is an American long-range wide-body airliner developed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. It is the world's largest twinjet. The 777 was designed to bridge the gap betw ...
does not have the structural integrity to survive crashing into the ocean, and that it would be comparable to hitting a concrete wall at
terminal velocity Terminal velocity is the maximum velocity (speed) attainable by an object as it falls through a fluid ( air is the most common example). It occurs when the sum of the drag force (''Fd'') and the buoyancy is equal to the downward force of grav ...
. If Flight 370 hit the ocean, they say, it would have been broken into tens of thousands of pieces, many of which float on water (such as the seat cushions) and would be seen washing up on regional shores or easily spotted by search teams. Those criticisms diminished after several pieces of the aircraft were positively identified in the years after its disappearance. Harvard professor Cass Sunstein noted that the conflicting information initially released by the Malaysian government explains the interest in alternative theories. Sunstein, who has written on the topic, argued in an interview with ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' on 20 March 2014 that conspiracy theories in general often are born out of horrific and disastrous situations because such events make people angry, fearful and looking for a "target". David Soucie, a former FAA inspector, has said that the theories that have been put forth in this matter are important when there is a lack of knowledge, as the theories and notions help us to consider various possibilities. On 26 March 2014, he stated on
CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
:
In an accident investigation, it's a critical part to come up with theories. Especially right now when we don't have anything. We don't have anything tangible. We don't have something to say, hey, yes—because we don't know where that airplane is and we need to find out why. If you take one theory, the airplane would be where we're looking at right now. If you take another theory, where there was nefarious intent, they're trying to avoid radars, the airplane could be somewhere else. If you say it was—whatever it is, you've got to use these theories, weigh them against the facts so you know which one to go to.
Tim Black, deputy editor of '' Spiked'', wrote:  "...it's in this darkness, this near absence of knowledge bout MH370 that speculation has flourished," and an editorial in the ''
Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...
'', not only stated that "conspiracy theories fill a vacuum when facts are scarce," but also urged governments to search for the plane to debunk these theories and give victims' family members peace of mind. The common hypothesis, cited also here, that MH370 avoided Indonesian radar is based only on a statement that the plane was not observed by Indonesia.


Hijacking

The possibility of a simple hijacking has been brought up by various news outlets, including
ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning ...
and the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
''. Speculation has mounted about the possibility that hijackers took the plane to a remote island, although no group has claimed responsibility; unofficial researchers have identified more than 600 possible runways at which the plane was capable of landing. No confirmation has been received from Malaysian officials. The credibility of several hijacking theories have become further marginalized following the discovery of the first definitive fragments of MH370 wreckage in July 2015. French air traffic specialists Jean-Marc Garot, Michel Delarche and Jean-Luc Marchand launched a website with their hypothesis concerning a possible hijacking, with a subsequent location of the aircraft (following an emergency ditching due to fuel exhaustion) estimated at around , in the Indian Ocean near
Christmas Island Christmas Island, officially the Territory of Christmas Island, is an Australian external territory comprising the island of the same name. It is located in the Indian Ocean, around south of Java and Sumatra and around north-west of the ...
. However, the final report from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), released in 2017, examined the possibility of controlled glide/ditching and found it very unlikely. Also, their hypothesis concerning a location of the crashed plane different from the searched locations is not the only one that exists.


Terrorist attack

Shortly after the aircraft disappeared, it was claimed that it may have been an act of terrorism, possibly a
jihadist Jihadism is a neologism which is used in reference to "militant Islamic movements that are perceived as existentially threatening to the West" and "rooted in political Islam."Compare: Appearing earlier in the Pakistani and Indian media, Wes ...
attack. Between 9 and 14 March 2014, media mogul
Rupert Murdoch Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...
tweeted that Flight 370's disappearance "confirms jihadists turning to make trouble for China ." He later suggested the flight might have been hidden in northern Pakistan, "like
Bin Laden Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until his death in 2011. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, his group is designated a ...
". These remarks have not been confirmed, and were characterized as conspiracy theories by Shiv Malik in ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
''. The following month, the Russian newspaper ''
Moskovskij Komsomolets ''Moskovskij Komsomolets'' (russian: Московский комсомолец, lit=Moscow Komsomolets) is a Moscow-based daily newspaper with a circulation approaching one million, covering general news. Founded in 1919, it is famed for its to ...
'' endorsed a similar theory, claiming that "unknown terrorists" had hijacked the plane, flown it to
Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
, and then held the crew and passengers hostage.


North Korea

A story circulated on
Reddit Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...
that MH370 had sufficient fuel to be hijacked to
North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...
as was done in 1969 with a Korean Air Lines YS-11.


Acquisition of Freescale staff

A variety of social media posts and email
chain letters A chain letter is a message that attempts to convince the recipient to make a number of copies and pass them on to a certain number of recipients. The "chain" is an exponentially growing pyramid (a tree graph) that cannot be sustained indefinite ...
claim that a patent
8671381
was approved days after the disappearance of the MH370, and the right to the patent was split five ways—20% to
Freescale Semiconductor Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. was an American semiconductor manufacturer. It was created by the divestiture of the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola in 2004. Freescale focused their integrated circuit products on the automotive, embe ...
and 20% each to four employees, all of whom were passengers on the plane. The patent deals with fabrication of integrated circuits on a semiconductor wafer. The urban myth website snopes.com suggests that there is no evidence that the four inventors listed on the patent application were on the aircraft passenger list, nor that they were entitled to a 20% share of the patent, and it says it is unlikely that their share would revert to Freescale on their death as presented in the email.


Diego Garcia

Conspiracy theorists have suggested that MH370 was either captured by the United States and then flown to the United States' military base on the atoll of
Diego Garcia Diego Garcia is an island of the British Indian Ocean Territory, a disputed overseas territory of the United Kingdom. It is a militarised atoll just south of the equator in the central Indian Ocean, and the largest of the 60 small islands of ...
in the British Indian Ocean Territory or that the plane landed at the base directly after being instructed to travel there. The latter theory was raised at a
White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
daily briefing on 18 March, whereupon press secretary
Jay Carney James Ferguson 'Jay' Carney (born May 22, 1965) is an American public relations officer, political advisor and journalist who has served as Amazon's Senior Vice President of Global Corporate Affairs from 2015 to 2022, and the United States Whit ...
responded, "I'll rule that one out." Underpinning the Diego Garcia theory were several elements, one of which was the co-pilot's mobile phone contact and the plane's westward turn, both of which were consistent with a flight path toward the island. In that vein, it was reported by the ''
Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print ...
'', without giving a concrete source, that the captain had trained in landing on an Indian Ocean island with a short runway, using a flight simulator in his home computer.Flight MH370: Missing jet pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah is prime suspect because he cleared his diary
(''Daily Mirror'', 23 June 2014)
Several mass media sources reported that the captain had trained using his aviasimulator to land on five runways—each at least long—in the Indian Ocean region, namely Diego Garcia and
Male International Airport Velana International Airport (VIA) ( Dhivehi: ) is the main international airport in the Maldives. It is located on Hulhulé Island in the North Malé Atoll, nearby the capital island Malé. The airport is well connected with major airports a ...
(MLE) and other airstrips in India and Sri Lanka. These allegations were disputed by the FBI, which reported that after analyzing the impounded flight simulator, it had found "nothing suspicious whatsoever" and said that the ''Mirror''s reports about the simulator's contents were "unsubstantiated and unsourced". Giving a new twist to the MH370 missing story, a former French airline boss has claimed that the Malaysia Airlines flight was shot down by the U.S. military near their base on Diego Garcia. In an article published on 18 March 2014, journalists Farah Ahmed and Ahmed Naif of the Maldivian newspaper '' Haveeru'' wrote: "...several residents of Kuda Huvadhoo told ''Haveeru'' on Tuesday that they saw a 'low flying jumbo jet' at around 06:15 on March 8. They said that it was a white aircraft, with red stripes across it—which is what the Malaysia Airlines flights typically look like. Eyewitnesses from the Kuda Huvadhoo concurred that the jet was traveling North to South-East, towards the Southern tip of the Maldives—Addu. They also noted the incredibly loud noise that the flight made when it flew over the island. 'I've never seen a jet flying so low over our island before. We've seen seaplanes, but I'm sure that this was not one of those. I could even make out the doors on the plane clearly.' said an eyewitness. 'It's not just me either, several other residents have reported seeing the exact same thing. Some people got out of their houses to see what was causing the tremendous noise too.' Mohamed Zaheem, the Island Councilor of Kuda Huvadhoo, said that the residents of the island had spoken about the incident." The discovery in late July 2015 of debris from a Boeing 777, on a beach on
Réunion Réunion (; french: La Réunion, ; previously ''Île Bourbon''; rcf, label= Reunionese Creole, La Rényon) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas department and region of France. It is located approximately east of the island ...
island, east of
Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...
, suspected (and later confirmed) to be from MH370, quickly led to renewed Internet speculation that the plane had been shot down near Diego Garcia, which is away from Réunion, out of fears of a terrorist attack. However, oceanographers such as Professor Charitha Pattiaratchi from the
University of Western Australia The University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Perth, the state capital, with a secondary campus in Albany, Western Australia, Albany an ...
said that "the arrival of MH370 debris in Réunion would conform to the expected path of ocean currents from the point in its flight path where it was believed to have crashed". Many people, including some of those who believed the plane had landed safely on Diego Garcia (or elsewhere), quickly dismissed the debris as a fake.


Phantom cellphone theory

Some had speculated that the passengers were still alive but could not answer their cellphones—sometimes known as the "phantom cellphone theory". This was based on early reports that family members of Flight 370 passengers heard ringing (as opposed to a busy/off signal) while calling the passengers' phones, though this was after the disappearance. However, this was later challenged by Jeff Kagan, a wireless analyst, who in an email to
NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's var ...
explained that the network may still produce " ringbacks" as it searches for a connection, even if the cellphone has been destroyed.


Crew suicide/hijacking

The cockpit had the mandated anti-hijacker fortified doors that could prevent locked-out crew or passengers from interfering with a suicide or hijacking into the
Southern Ocean The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of , it is regarded as the second-small ...
. This can be compared to
SilkAir Flight 185 SilkAir Flight 185 was a scheduled international passenger flight operated by a Boeing 737-300 from Soekarno–Hatta International Airport in Jakarta, Indonesia to Changi Airport in Singapore that crashed into the Musi River near Palembang, Sum ...
(a posited pilot suicide incident in 1997),
EgyptAir Flight 990 EgyptAir Flight 990 (MS990/MSR990) was a regularly scheduled flight from Los Angeles International Airport to Cairo International Airport, with a stop at John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City. On October 31, 1999, the Boeing 767-3 ...
(1999),
LAM Mozambique Airlines Flight 470 LAM Mozambique Airlines Flight 470 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Maputo, Mozambique, to Luanda, Angola. On 29 November 2013, the Embraer E190 twinjet operating the service crashed into the Bwabwata National Park in Namibia ...
(2013), as well as the later
Germanwings Flight 9525 Germanwings Flight 9525 PDF of the English translation of the final report and thoriginal French version(which the BEA notes on PDF p. 2/110 of the English PDF is the primary work of reference) was a scheduled international passenger flight fr ...
(2015). On 17 February 2014, less than three weeks before Flight 370 disappeared,
Ethiopian Airlines Flight 702 Ethiopian Airlines Flight 702 was a scheduled flight from Addis Ababa to Milan via Rome on 17 February 2014. The aircraft, an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 767-300ER, was hijacked by the unarmed co-pilot, Hailemedhin Abera Tegegn, en route from Ad ...
had been hijacked when the co-pilot locked the captain out of the cabin and diverted the aircraft to seek asylum in Switzerland. Shortly after Flight 370's disappearance, media reports revealed that Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah's wife and three children moved out of his house the day before the disappearance; and a friend claimed that Captain Shah was seeing another woman and Shah's relationship with her was also in trouble. Claims of domestic problems have been denied by Shah's family. A fellow pilot and long-time associate of Shah stated the Captain was "terribly upset" that his marriage was falling apart. Police were also investigating reports that Shah received a two-minute phone call prior to the flight's departure from an unidentified woman using a mobile phone number obtained with a false identity. Furthermore, Captain Shah was also a supporter of Malaysian opposition politician
Anwar Ibrahim Anwar bin Ibrahim ( ms, انور بن ابراهيم, label= Jawi, script=arab, italic=unset, IPA: ; born 10 August 1947) is a Malaysian politician who has served as the 10th Prime Minister of Malaysia since November 2022. He served as the 12 ...
, who was sentenced to jail on 7 March after an earlier acquittal on sodomy charges was overturned in a move viewed as politically motivated. Investigators noted strange behaviour by Shah from conducting 170 interviews—namely, that the Captain had made no social or professional plans for after 8 March, when Flight 370 disappeared. However, according to the French journalist Florence de Changy who wrote a book about the flight, dismissing "100 per cent of the official narrative", Shah made an appointment with his dentist to get back his tooth crown when the dentist phoned him a few days before 8 March. News reports about the Captain's lack of social plans and flight simulator exercises cite results of the police enquiry into the pilots, which have been shared with some of the investigation team but have not been released publicly. However, news reports on 23 July 2014 stated that the police considered the possible culpability of all those onboard the plane, and identified the captain as the prime suspect—if it is proven human intervention was involved. The United States'
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
reconstructed the deleted data from Captain Shah's home
flight simulator A flight simulator is a device that artificially re-creates aircraft flight and the environment in which it flies, for pilot training, design, or other purposes. It includes replicating the equations that govern how aircraft fly, how they rea ...
; a Malaysian government spokesman indicated that "nothing sinister" had been found on it. However, ''
The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...
'' later reported that among deleted flight paths performed on the flight simulator, investigators found a flight path into the Southern Ocean where a simulated landing was made on an island with a small runway. In 2016, a leaked American document stated that a route on the pilot's home flight simulator closely matching the projected flight over the Indian Ocean was found during the FBI analysis of the hard drive of the computer used for the flight simulator. This was later confirmed by the ATSB, although it stressed that this did not prove the pilot's involvement, and by the Malaysian government. A book, ''Goodnight Malaysian 370'', was published in August 2014 by New Zealanders Geoff Taylor and Ewan Wilson; the authors blamed a deliberate act of the pilot for the aircraft's disappearance, but admitted they were not able to "provide any conclusive evidence to support his theory" nor any motive. Ewan Wilson had previously dismissed the fire emergency theory as unlikely. New Zealand aviation expert Peter Clark stated that to take over the aircraft took "immense knowledge" and that even the co-pilot would not have been sufficiently skilled to disable the communications system and reprogramme a seven-hour flight off-course. However, Clark admitted the theory would be difficult to prove even if the data recorders were found, because the voice recorders would likely have been overwritten; and because, if the pilot was in control of the aircraft, then instrument data would report no anomalies. Shah's family vehemently denied the possibility of pilot suicide. Former British Airways senior Boeing 777 pilot Simon Hardy told
BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...
that the plane's route was "probably very accurate flying rather than just a coincidence", and noted that the aircraft's turn toward the north-west over the Malacca Strait allowed a clear view of the captain's home island of
Penang Penang ( ms, Pulau Pinang, is a Malaysian state located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia, by the Malacca Strait. It has two parts: Penang Island, where the capital city, George Town, is located, and Seberang Perai on the Malay ...
: In May 2018, Simon Hardy also claimed on '' 60 Minutes Australia'' that the captain used the flight as a murder-suicide and had deliberately flown the plane over his hometown of Penang before turning right and ditching the plane over the
Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...
. He said they found these results by reconstructing the captain's flight plan from the military radar and that the captain had avoided detection of the plane by military radar by flying along the border of Malaysia and Thailand, crossing in and out of each country's airspaces.


Fire

A number of theories suggest that the disappearance may have been the result of a fire in the cockpit, cargo compartment, landing gear, or another part of the plane. In an earlier incident involving a Boeing 777, on 29 July 2011,
EgyptAir Flight 667 On 29 July 2011, EgyptAir Flight 667, a Boeing 777 on a scheduled passenger flight from Cairo, Egypt, to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, suffered a cockpit fire on the ground at Cairo Airport, while preparing to depart. There were no fatalities, but seven p ...
suffered an intense oxygen-fed cockpit fire while still on the ground which destroyed the flight controls, the instruments and burnt a hole through the hull of the aircraft. Despite the arrival of firefighters within three minutes, the fire took 90 minutes to extinguish. Malaysia Air's maintenance records for the 777 aircraft are required to include information on whether the FAA-mandated fix to the wiring near the co-pilot's oxygen hose and replacement of the oxygen hose with one with no metallic components was performed. Another suggestion is that the pilots had turned back and were attempting an emergency landing at the nearest suitable airport in Northern Malaysia, perhaps
Penang International Airport Penang International Airport is an airport in northern Malaysia. The airport is located near Bayan Lepas at the southeastern tip of Penang Island, south of the city centre.Langkawi International Airport Langkawi International Airport is an airport in Padang Matsirat, Langkawi, Kedah, Malaysia. In 2015, the airport handled 2,336,177 passengers and 30,853 aircraft movements. The airport serves as a venue for the Langkawi International Maritime ...
(Langkawi Island), a airstrip with an approach over water with no obstacles. The emergency may have been due to an incident similar to the 11 July 1991 accident involving a Douglas DC-8,
Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 was a chartered passenger flight from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to Sokoto, Nigeria, on 11 July 1991, which caught fire shortly after takeoff from King Abdulaziz International Airport and crashed while attempting to retu ...
, where a tire caught fire on takeoff, and the later spreading of the fire led to the destruction of the aircraft with the loss of 261 lives. In another accident, involving a fire on a
McDonnell Douglas MD-11 The McDonnell Douglas MD-11 is an American tri-jet wide-body airliner manufactured by American McDonnell Douglas (MDC) and later by Boeing. Following DC-10 development studies, the MD-11 program was launched on December 30, 1986. Assembly of ...
on 2 September 1998, Swissair Flight 111 from New York to Geneva developed a cockpit fire in the electrical wiring that spread rapidly, leading to a loss of flight instruments and control. The aircraft crashed into the Atlantic Ocean with the loss of 229 lives, 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) from shore, southwest of
Halifax International Airport Halifax Stanfield International Airport is a Canadian airport in Goffs, Nova Scotia, a rural community of the Halifax Regional Municipality. It serves the Halifax region, mainland Nova Scotia, and adjacent areas in the neighbouring Maritime pr ...
, Nova Scotia, where the plane was attempting an emergency landing. In the Swissair case, the transponders and communications systems failed due to fire and heat damage in the avionics circuit breaker panel.


Shoot-down hypothesis

American political commentator
Rush Limbaugh Rush Hudson Limbaugh III ( ; January 12, 1951 – February 17, 2021) was an American conservative political commentator who was the host of '' The Rush Limbaugh Show'', which first aired in 1984 and was nationally syndicated on AM and FM r ...
, according to
CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
, speculated that the aircraft may have been shot down. Supporters of this theory have noted that civilian aircraft have been shot down by military forces in the past, with
Iran Air Flight 655 Iran Air Flight 655 was a scheduled passenger flight from Tehran to Dubai via Bandar Abbas that was shot down on 3July 1988 by two SM-2MR surface-to-air missiles fired by the , a guided-missile cruiser of the United States Navy. The aircraft, ...
by the United States in 1988 and KAL 007 by the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
in 1983 being two frequently cited examples. On 19 March 2014,
news agency A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and All-news radio, radio and News broadcasting, television Broadcasting, broadcasters. A news agency may ...
reporter Scott Mayerowitz of
Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...
described "Accidental Shootdown" as one of seven "leading, plausible theories", but added that there was "no evidence that Flight 370 was brought down by a government entity". A Malaysian defense official, Ackbal bin Haji Abdul Samad, said it was "highly not possible" that his country's air force had shot down the plane. According to '' The Financial Express'', the
Malaysian Air Force The Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF, ms, Tentera Udara Diraja Malaysia; TUDM; Jawi: ) was formed on 2 June 1958 as the Royal Federation of Malaya Air Force (; ). However, its roots can be traced back to the Malayan Auxiliary Air Force format ...
detected the plane on radar while it was in flight, but took no action because it was believed to be a "friendly" aircraft. In May 2014, author
Nigel Cawthorne Nigel Cawthorne (born 27 March 1951 in Wolverhampton) is a British freelance writer of fiction and non-fiction, and an editor. According to Cawthorne's website, he has written more than 150 books on a wide range of subjects. He also contribute ...
's book '' Flight MH370: The Mystery'' was published. Cawthorne alleged that after the jet was shot down during a U.S.-Thai
Joint Strike Fighter Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is a development and acquisition program intended to replace a wide range of existing fighter, strike, and ground attack aircraft for the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands ...
jet training exercise, searchers intentionally were sent astray as part of a sophisticated cover-up. The book received considerable criticism, especially from ''
The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition, ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatew ...
'' where it was characterised thus: "Cawthorne undoes everybody's good work by retrieving every obsolete and discredited non-fact from the trash, slapping the whole lot between covers." Relatives of those aboard Flight 370 criticised the book as "premature and insensitive". In a CNN interview on 24 April 2014, the
Malaysian Prime Minister The prime minister of Malaysia ( ms, Perdana Menteri Malaysia; ms, ڤردان منتري مليسيا, label= Jawi, script=arab, italic=unset) is the head of government of Malaysia. The prime minister directs the executive branch of the feder ...
, Najib Razak, stated only that the radar "tracked an aircraft which did a turn back, but they were not exactly sure whether it was MH370. What they were sure of was that the aircraft was not deemed to be hostile." On 22 December 2014 the former head of
Proteus Airlines Proteus Airlines was a French regional airline with its head offices in Saint-Apollinaire, Côte-d'Or, France, near Dijon, and in Saint-Étienne. Founded in 1986, it remained operational until 2001. History The airline was originally established ...
, Marc Dugain, claimed that the plane may have been shot down by U.S. military personnel out of fear of an attack similar to the
September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
on their Navy Base in
Diego Garcia Diego Garcia is an island of the British Indian Ocean Territory, a disputed overseas territory of the United Kingdom. It is a militarised atoll just south of the equator in the central Indian Ocean, and the largest of the 60 small islands of ...
. The claims were described by the source article as "wild".


Cyberattack

The hypothesis that a
cyberattack A cyberattack is any offensive maneuver that targets computer information systems, computer networks, infrastructures, or personal computer devices. An attacker is a person or process that attempts to access data, functions, or other restricte ...
may have been carried out on Flight 370 has been raised, primarily based on statements made by Sally Leivesley, a former scientific advisor to the UK government. Whether existing security on commercial flights is sufficient to prevent such an attack is also a matter of debate, although
Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...
has dismissed the possibility. A spokeswoman for the company, Gayla Keller, said that they were "confident in the robust protection of all flight critical systems and inability for a hacker to gain access by either external or internal means on the 777 and all Boeing airplanes." While supporters of this theory have cited Hugo Teso's app which hacked into pilot-training software, which Teso presented at a conference in April 2013, the
Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...
and other major governmental bodies dismissed the significance of the app. They stated that the software on an actual plane would be different from the software on which Teso had tested his app.


Vertical entry into the sea

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...
mathematics professor
Goong Chen Goong Chen (born July 7, 1950, Kaohsiung, Taiwan) is an applied mathematician known for his use of computer forensics and computer simulation to recreate what may have occurred in aviation accidents. He is currently Professor of Mathematics at T ...
has argued that the plane may have entered the sea vertically; any other angle of entry would have splintered the airplane to many pieces, which would have necessarily been found already.


MH17 and QZ8501 connections

On 17 July 2014,
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17) was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down by Russian forces on 17 July 2014, while flying over eastern Ukraine. All 283 passengers and 15 crew were killed. Cont ...
was shot down over Ukraine. Because it, like Flight 370, was also a Boeing 777, some conspiracy theorists have suggested that the plane that crashed in Ukraine was actually Flight 370. This is based in part on photographs of the crash scene, which conspiracy theorists claim show that the plane that crashed in Ukraine had structural differences from MH370. Experts have dismissed this theory and argued that it is merely coincidental that both planes involved belonged to the same airline. When
Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 was a scheduled international passenger flight operated by Indonesia AirAsia from Surabaya, Java, Indonesia, to Singapore. On 28 December 2014, the Airbus A320 flying the route crashed into the Java Sea, killing ...
crashed on 28 December 2014, various similarities with MH370 were noted, including that both airlines were Malaysian-owned, and that both planes lost contact with
air traffic control Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airs ...
. There was also a reported conspiracy theory involving an alleged prediction on 15 December 2014 on Chinese news sites cite the user's name as "老百姓有自己的乐", which can be translated as 'the common people have their own pleasures'. The Chinese term "楼主" could be hyper-literally read as "master of a building", but this would be non-idiomatic, and in the context of Internet forums it invariably refers to the opener of a forum thread, referred to in English Internet slang as the "original poster" or OP. The user's post warned Chinese people to stay away from AirAsia as it would be attacked, as MH370 and MH17 allegedly had been (according to the user), as part of a conspiracy by a "black hand" or "despicable international bully" to harm Malaysian-owned airlines. Other online posters suggested that the user was either a Chinese intelligence official or a hacker who had come across secret information.


Physically improbable theories

The theory that MH370 may have been consumed by a
black hole A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravitation, gravity is so strong that nothing, including light or other Electromagnetic radiation, electromagnetic waves, has enough energy to escape it. The theory of general relativity predicts t ...
received considerable attention when
Don Lemon Don Lemon (born March 1, 1966) is an American television journalist most well known for being a host on CNN. Lemon anchored weekend news programs on local television stations in Alabama and Pennsylvania during his early days as a journalist. He ...
asked, on CNN, whether it was "preposterous" that it could have happened. Lemon was criticised for this by former
U.S. Department of Transportation The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT or DOT) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is headed by the secretary of transportation, who reports directly to the President of the United States and ...
Inspector General
Mary Schiavo Mary Fackler Schiavo () is the former Inspector General of the United States Department of Transportation (DOT), where for six years she withstood pressure from within DOT and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as she sought to expose and ...
, who, while appearing on CNN, said that "...a small black hole would suck in our entire universe so we know it's not that."
TheWire.com ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
(which "wasn't satisfied" with Schiavo's answer) obtained detailed reasons why a black hole couldn't swallow a plane from
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
astronomy professor
David J. Helfand David J. Helfand is a U.S. astronomer who served as president of Quest University Canada from 2008 to 2015. Prior to his presidency at Quest, he was a Visiting Tutor at Quest. He has also served as chair of the Department of Astronomy at Columbi ...
and Peter Michelson, a professor of physics at
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
. It is possible that Schiavo was expressing herself humorously, and did not expect to be taken literally. Another hypothesis is that a
meteor A meteoroid () is a small rocky or metallic body in outer space. Meteoroids are defined as objects significantly smaller than asteroids, ranging in size from grains to objects up to a meter wide. Objects smaller than this are classified as micr ...
might have struck the plane; however, the statistical probability for this is extremely low. In March 2018, around the fourth anniversary of Flight 370's disappearance, an individual received strange voicemails and texts with coordinates of a location in Indonesia somewhat close to where Flight 370 vanished. The voicemails, in
Morse code Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one of ...
, alluded to an alien abduction. This generated significant media attention, as the man who received the texts and voicemails also claimed that someone had showed up and taken pictures of his house, although this was never conclusively verified. The calls were placed using a
VOIP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...
service and were traced to two hotels in
Port Blair Port Blair () is the capital city of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a union territory of India in the Bay of Bengal. It is also the local administrative sub-division (''tehsil'') of the islands, the headquarters for the district of South An ...
, though the identity of the caller remains uncertain. Investigators dismissed the phone calls as most likely being a prank or hoax.


Claims of responsibility

On 9 March 2014, members of the Chinese news media received an open letter that claimed to be from the leader of the Chinese Martyrs Brigade, a previously unknown group. The letter claimed that the loss of Flight 370 was in retaliation for the Chinese government's response to the knife attacks at Kunming railway station on 1 March 2014 and part of the wider separatist campaign against Chinese control over
Xinjiang Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...
province. The letter also listed unspecified grievances against the Malaysian government. The letter's claim was dismissed as fraudulent based on its lack of detail regarding the fate of Flight 370 and the fact that the name "Chinese Martyrs Brigade" appeared inconsistent with Uyghur separatist groups which describe themselves as "East Turkestan" and "Islamic" rather than "Chinese".


References


Further reading

* * * {{Conspiracy theories 2014 controversies disappearance theories Conspiracy theories involving aviation incidents Pseudohistory De:Malaysia-Airlines-Flug 370#Theorien