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Quick answers
What was Malaysia Airlines Flight 370?
A scheduled Boeing 777-200ER service, 9M-MRO, from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on 8 March 2014. It carried 227 passengers and 12 crew. It never arrived. The wreck has not been found.
When did contact end?
The last ATC voice call was shortly after 01:19 MYT near waypoint IGARI. Secondary radar then ceased. Military primary radar later showed a westward and then southward track. Inmarsat handshakes continued for hours.
Why do officials say the southern Indian Ocean?
Inmarsat handshake timing and frequency-offset analysis, announced by Malaysia on 24 March 2014 and later used by the ATSB, placed the end of flight on a southern arc. Debris later found on western Indian Ocean shores is consistent with that ocean, not with a landing in China.
Has any of the aircraft been found?
Yes, fragments. A right flaperon on Réunion in July 2015 was identified as from 9M-MRO. Other pieces were later accepted or treated as almost certain. The main wreckage and the recorders have not been located.
What did the 2018 Malaysian report conclude?
The Annex 13 safety investigation could not determine the cause. It recorded the reconstructed track, the debris and the limits of the evidence. It did not name a person as responsible.
Who led the ocean search?
After the southern-arc announcement, Australia’s JACC coordinated and the ATSB led the official seabed search west of Australia, with Malaysia and China as partners. That search ended in January 2017. Ocean Infinity searched again in 2018.
The story that can be told from radar, satellite paper and debris is a missed handoff, a reconstructed southern arc and a flaperon on Réunion.
The story English-language television prefers is a completed cockpit plot. This page keeps the 2018 report’s open cause.
Beats
- A night departure for Beijing
9M-MRO left Kuala Lumpur at 00:41 MYT on 8 March 2014 as a routine scheduled service. The passenger list was international; the largest national group was Chinese.
- Silence after IGARI
After the last polite handoff, secondary radar and ATC voice ended. Vietnam and Malaysia spent hours establishing that the aircraft was not on the next frequency.
- A hidden turn, then a public ocean
Military primary radar, once reconstructed, showed a westbound crossing. Inmarsat analysis then moved the world’s attention to the southern Indian Ocean on 24 March.
- Years of seabed and a beach find
The ATSB box found no wreck. The Réunion flaperon proved that part of 9M-MRO had entered the western Indian Ocean.
- A report without a cause
Malaysia’s 2018 safety report closed the official narrative without locating the recorders or naming a reason for the diversion.
The story that remains honest is unsolved. The flight number is a headline, not a wreck site.
Public-record encyclopedia. Not legal advice. Not a how-to. Graphic detail is withheld. Wars belong in a separate atlas.