Flight MH370: What Happened To Missing Plane, Will Black Boxes Be Found?
In the quest to find out what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 when it vanished into thin air on March 8, search crews think they are getting closer to locating the all important black boxes that are expected to contain critical information to answer the burning question: why did the plane change course?
There is almost no doubt that someone in the cockpit of Flight MH370 turned off the transponder and ACARS system, which are needed to follow the plane on radar, for unknown reasons.
Any pilot will agree that there is absolutely no valid reason to turn either of those pieces of instruments off, unless of course the person doing it has ulterior motives.
Adding to the puzzle that has become the disappearance of Flight MH370 is that not one piece of physical evidence has been found more than a month later, even as search crews and the Malaysian Defense Minister announced on Friday that they are confident the signals being picked up in the southern Indian Ocean are indeed those from the plane’s data and voice recorders.
There have been five different instances in which listening devices used by search crews have picked up such signals, which according to the manufacturer of Flight MH370’s black boxes, are using the same frequency.
But thus far and following the frustrating search for the missing plane nothing concrete has been found, making the disappearance of Flight MH370 the biggest aviation mystery of all. Search crews combing the seas for debris have come up empty.
Exhausted crews are on a race against time, as the battery life in the black boxes — which are actually orange — is only about one month, less than the time that has passed since the plane went missing.
On Friday, Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott gave an unprecedented and extremely detailed briefing for Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing and assured:
“Australia will not rest until we have done everything we can to provide comfort and closure. You will be among sorrowing friends should you choose to come to Australia.”
Abbott told Xi that the search has been narrowed to an area of 10 kilometers (approximately six miles) by 10 kilometers, and authorities are fairly confident they will find Flight MH370 in the waters of the Indian Ocean. China has 154 citizens on board the missing plane.
All of this encouraging news doesn’t explain why the Malaysian airliner ended up thousands of miles off course from its intended destination, Beijing.
The burning question becomes even more pressing as Malaysia’s Defense Minister told Sky News, “Everyone on board remains under suspicion as it stands.”
But for now, investigators are focusing all their efforts and using the latest technology at their disposal, in the search for Flight MH370’s black boxes at the bottom of the Indian Ocean and the rest of the aircraft that carried 239 souls.
[Image via ScrapeTV.com]
