It has been over a year since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared while flying from Kuala Lampur, Malaysia to Beijing, China. Ever since MH370 vanished on March 8, 2014, the world has been constantly wondering how such a plane can just disappear from the air traffic controllers' radar screens, why the wreckage has not been found, as well as all the families of the victims that want to know what happened. This is the latest Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Search Update, and certain speculation of the plane crash cause.
According to The Week, more than 75 percent of the original search zone in the southern Indian Ocean has been explored and there has been no sign of the aircraft or any of the 239 people on board. The investigators have doubled the search zone to 120,000 square kilometers, and the Australian government announced that it set aside an additional $50 Million to help cover the costs of an ongoing search for the missing plane.
According to NBC News, the search team found some wreckage, but it was not the wreckage it wanted to find. The Australian government reports that it has found a previously uncharted shipwreck located 13,000 feet below the surface of the Indian Ocean.
When the "cluster of small sonar contacts" was found, it was unlikely that it would be related to MH370, but it was enough to warrant an investigation. The images of the wreck of this ship will be given to marine archaeologists for any identification.
ATSB (Australian Transport Safety Bureau) Peter Foley, who is the director of the operational search for MH370, found the ship to be "a fascinating find" but it was "not what we're looking for". However, the discovery of this shipwreck "demonstrated that the systems, people and the equipment involved in the search are working well". Foley also added: "it's shown that if there's a debris field in the search area, we'll find it".
This has led to a big question of what will happen if flight MH370 is found. Should the plane be "found and accessible", then the evidence would need to be secured in accordance with Annex 13 to the Chicago Convention. This means that flight MH370 would be investigated by studying the flight recorders as well as carrying out autopsies on the casualties in order to prevent other disasters in the future.
This would probably be the only way to determine the plane crash cause. Of course, there are several conspiracy theories that range from hostile involvements from the U.S., Israel, or Russia, with aliens thrown in. You can read about those theories on a separate article from The Week.
