MH370: The Missing Airliner, Divided Data, and a Story That Never Closed

In the early hours of 8 March 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing. There were 239 people on board. At 1:19 a.m., after leaving Malaysian control, the cockpit said “good night” to Vietnamese air traffic control. Minutes later, the aircraft’s civilian transponder disappeared. No distress call followed.

Military radar later showed that the aircraft did not continue northeast. It turned back over the Malay Peninsula and headed west. Automatic satellite handshakes with Inmarsat continued for hours even though the radio and transponder were silent. Analysts used those signals to move the search toward the southern Indian Ocean. The Boeing 777 was not found, but each new release of data changed the official story’s direction.