What happened to the Boeing flying from Malaysia. “Down-Down-Missing” Malaysian Boeing over Ukraine

In 2014, on the night of March 7-8, a Boeing 777-200ER aircraft belonging to the airline Malaysia Airlines was flying. It was flight MH370 flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. For unknown reasons, while crossing the Indian Ocean, the airliner disappeared from radar. There were 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board at that time. If proven to be a crash of this aircraft, this incident would become one of the largest disasters in the history of aviation.

After the incident, dozens of countries joined forces to find the plane. All sorts of modern high-tech means were used, however, despite this, large-scale search efforts did not bring any results for a long time. Based on data received from the satellite, the Malaysian government announced after 2 weeks that the plane crash occurred in the southern part of Indian Ocean. All passengers and crew were killed. However, no physical evidence was provided.

During the search work, signals were recorded coming from a black box from the bottom of the ocean. However, over time, the signals stopped coming. It was not possible to prove that at the bottom of the ocean there was exactly the black box that belonged to the wanted airliner.

The search covered a vast area from the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean (to the western coast of Australia) through the Strait of Malacca. Such a vast territory was allocated for a reason. The Boeing stopped sending signals to dispatchers 40 minutes after takeoff. Probably, after this, the plane remained in the air for several more hours, radically changing its flight route.

The search operation lasted from March to April. 26 states took part in it. Despite the fact that no wreckage of the airliner, passengers' belongings, or bodies of the dead were found, experts were able to establish that the crash occurred in the southern part of the ocean. Experts came to this conclusion after studying the airliner’s trajectory, which was transmitted via the Inmarsat satellite. There was no other data to support this conclusion.

Starting in April, the search was moved underwater. Unmanned submarines were used for this. Experts examined over 300 square miles aquatic environment in the suspected crash area. However, no traces of the Boeing were found here either. Several months after the search began, experts were still unable to accurately answer the question of what happened to the Malaysian Boeing that disappeared in March.

As a rule, after a plane disappears from radar, airlines immediately issue alarms to begin a search operation. In the Boeing case, the airline in Malaysia announced that it would not begin searching until five hours after the aircraft stopped receiving signals. This delay arose due to the fault of the dispatcher, who, as it turned out, had been sleeping for 4 hours after the plane disappeared from radar. At the same time, Vietnamese air traffic controllers (and at the moment the Boeing disappeared from the radars was just approaching the territory of this state) began to find out why the airliner did not enter the airspace 2 minutes after the appointed time, but only 20 minutes later. It is obvious that if the airliner had actually fallen into the water, the current could have carried the Boeing over a long distance in a matter of minutes.

Wreckage

Search operations have helped establish that the missing Malaysia Airlines plane is likely in the water. On land they would have already found him after all these months of work. A few days after the disappearance of the Boeing, information appeared in the media that during the search operation a piece of aircraft was found. It was discovered in the South China Sea. However, the belonging of the found fragment to Boeing was immediately refuted, since it turned out that it was a cable reel overgrown with aquatic vegetation.

Following this, new information emerged that officials from the Maritime Safety Authority in Australia had found two pieces of debris that may be part of the missing aircraft. Around the same time, China announced the discovery of two large pieces of debris that could also be part of the Boeing. However, these finds were never proven to belong to Boeing.

Only in July 2015 was the first piece of debris found that actually belonged to the missing airliner. Moreover, the debris was discovered by cleaners who were removing garbage on the territory of Reunion Island. Part of the wing was found at a distance of more than 4 thousand kilometers from the outlined search area under water. Cleaners found a part of an aircraft wing almost 2.5 m long. The surface of the wreckage was covered with shells. After this discovery, experts began to explore the island. Several more pieces of debris were found. As a result, it was confirmed that both the wreckage and the wing belonged to Boeing.

After 6 months, information about the discovery of aircraft parts again appeared in the media. This time the fragment was found in Nakhon Si Thammarat province. Locals They discovered a large curved metal object that washed up on the ocean shore. However, as a result of the examination, it was established that the serial number and link numbers are not the same as those of the desired Boeing.

Another piece of debris was found on the coast of Mozambique. It was a piece of metal approximately 1 m long. It was believed that it was a horizontal stabilizer that was attached to the tail of the airliner. But the only proof that this stabilizer really belonged to the missing Boeing was that it was found in the area where the crash could have occurred. There was no other confirmation of the identity of this fragment.

In fact, during all this time, only 3 pieces of debris were found that could actually be parts of the Boeing. However, not a single suitcase, not a single item, not a single body of a passenger or crew member was found. At the same time, over the entire period of search operations, a huge territory was explored and about $50 million was spent. These searches were recognized as the largest in the history of aviation.

Since after 2 years of search work it was not possible to understand where the Malaysian Boeing disappeared, the International Coordination Search Center announced the cessation of search operations.

Causes of the crash

In fact, fruitless searches have led to the emergence of many different versions explaining the cause of the plane's crash. One of the versions belongs to M. Dugen, head of Proteus Airlines. He claimed that the US military was involved in the Boeing crash. According to him, the plane was shot down deliberately due to US suspicions that terrorists were going to hijack the airliner. To prevent terrorist acts similar to those that occurred on September 11, the military was forced to shoot down the aircraft.

The missing Malaysian plane was last seen flying over the Strait of Malacca, according to the Malaysian government. Moreover, he moved in the opposite direction from the planned one. Taking this into account, we can conclude that the airliner changed course after losing contact with the dispatcher.

According to this version, information about where to actually look for the plane is known to the United States. However, the official search was carried out in a completely different place. Dugen believes that in reality the fall occurred not far from military base USA, which is located on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. However, in order to relieve ourselves of responsibility for the death of such large quantity passengers and crew who were on board, the Americans are hiding information about real place disasters. Dugen believes that only the debris washed ashore on Reunion Island made it possible to find out the truth about the disaster. He also considers suspicious the fact that in the area outlined for the search, work was carried out for months. When the wing fragment was found, search operations in the area of ​​the island lasted only 10 days. The question arises: why did the search stop so quickly? There is no doubt that the found wing piece actually belongs to the missing airliner. After an examination carried out in Australia, it was found that the visible part of the number coincides with the number of the airliner.

Dugen's version was supported by many relatives and friends dead passengers. Confirmation that the found fragment belonged to Boeing became the reason for the protest. Relatives and friends could not understand why, knowing that the missing Malaysian plane had changed course during the flight, the search was conducted in a completely different place, as if the airliner had not changed route. At the same time, huge sums and a lot of time were wasted.

Suspicions of attempts to commit a terrorist act among the American military were not unfounded. As the investigation showed, there were two Iranian citizens on board the plane who purchased tickets for the airliner using forged documents. They used the passport details of two Europeans who lost their documents while on holiday in Thailand. The details were subsequently entered by Interpol into the international database of stolen documents. Despite this, two citizens with someone else’s documents managed to go through the control procedure and purchase tickets without arousing any suspicion among airline and airport employees. There are no supporting facts that there was an explosive device on board or that the plane was hijacked by terrorists. Therefore, it is impossible to prove the terrorist attack version.

The commander's depression as the cause of the plane crash

The latest news reports various data about the reason for the crash of the Malaysian Boeing, which disappeared in March. One version is that the airliner commander was depressed. His name was Zachary Ahmad Shah. This version of a deliberate crash is similar to the truth, since this has already happened in the history of aviation. In particular, one such case was the crash of an Airbus A320. A. Lubitz, the commander of this airliner, deliberately crashed the plane. It was later discovered that he suffered from chronic depression and regularly visited a psychiatrist.

Zachary, the commander of the missing Boeing, was also experiencing a mental crisis in the time leading up to the disaster. According to his wife, recently their family relations have been very tense. And about two weeks before this flight, the couple did not communicate at all. One of Zachary's close friends told police after the crash that he was depressed. He even recommended that the crew commander not take the helm. The commander's daughter admitted that in the last few weeks before the departure, her father seemed to her like a completely different person. She claims that he had changed a lot and no longer looked like the cheerful person he had been before.

The US FBI put forward one version, according to which the crash was a deliberate action by the crew commander. These conclusions were confirmed by a simulator (simulator) that simulates an aircraft cockpit. This simulator allows you to practice flying. It was established that for several weeks before the flight, Zachary practiced a route that would lead to the plane crashing. As investigators noted, the Boeing's route actually resembled the one the commander practiced in the simulator. Moreover, the FBI noted that for some reason the commander erased all records and data that were stored in the simulator. However, experts were able to recover data from the hard drives. The found wing fragment had lowered flaps. This is further evidence that the plane was deliberately aimed straight down into the ocean. Thus, there is quite a lot of evidence that the crash was the result of intentional actions.

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The disappearance of the Boeing 777-200 airliner Malaysia Airlines in March 2014 shook the whole world. The most varied versions of what happened were put forward. But until now nothing really is known about the fate of the plane.

Was the flight “normal”?

On March 8, 2014, Boeing flew a joint flight with China Southern Airlines flight MH370, traveling from the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur to Beijing (China). On board there were 227 passengers from different countries and 12 crew members. The crew commander was experienced 53-year-old pilot Zachary Ahmad Shah, and the co-pilot was 27-year-old co-pilot Farik Ab Namid. The airliner took off from Kuala Lumpur at 0.41 local time and was scheduled to land at Beijing airport at 6.30.

At 02.40 Malaysia time, the plane disappeared from radar screens. At the same time, the dispatchers did not receive any information about technical problems, course changes or other problems. The last message received from the crew read: "Everything is fine, good night." At that moment, the liner was over the South China Sea, 220 kilometers from east coast Malaysia.

26 countries, including Russia, took part in the search and rescue operation. But no traces of the missing airliner were found. At the end of January 2015, the department civil aviation Malaysia officially declared everyone on board the plane dead.

July 29, 2015 at French island Reunion in the Indian Ocean, near the city of San Andre, beach cleaners found a fragment of the wing of an unidentified aircraft, covered with shells. Experts have confirmed that this fragment most likely belongs to the missing airliner. Later, other fragments were discovered, but it was never possible to prove their indisputable belonging to the disappeared Boeing.

Oddities

Meanwhile, the investigation, which was carried out by Malaysia along with seven other countries - the US, UK, France, China, Singapore, Indonesia and Australia, showed that after the plane became inaccessible to radar, it spent another 7 hours in flight. The last contact took place over the Gulf of Malacca, south of Kuala Lumpur. After approximately 40 minutes, communications with ground services were lost, including the ACARS system, accessible only from the cockpit. Only electronic messages continued to arrive from the on-board terminal to the Inmarsat satellites. It was thanks to them that it became known that over the Malaysian city of Kota Bharu, the Boeing changed course, crossed Malaysia for the second time in a southwestern direction and headed south. The flight is believed to have ended in the southern Indian Ocean. The last signal from the board was received by satellites at 8:15 local time. The black box signals were never recorded.

Was the plane hijacked by the Americans?

During a search of Captain Ahmad Shah's house, a homemade Boeing flight simulator was found. It turned out that for some reason the Shah was training to land the airliner at five airfields in the Indian Ocean region. He also erased all entries from his electronic diary.

Therefore, the main version of the investigation was the hijacking of the airliner by unknown persons who were allegedly in collusion with the pilots. Another argument in favor of the crew’s involvement in the disappearance of the plane was the fact that a few minutes before departure, Ahmad Shah spoke on his mobile phone with a woman who had purchased a SIM card using forged documents.

It was the hijackers who could turn off the devices. But where was the plane hijacked? One of the points where Ahmad Shah “planted” him with the help of a simulator was the US military base “Diego Garcia”, located on an atoll island with an area of ​​about 27 square kilometers, part of the Chagos archipelago.

Why did the American military need to hijack the Boeing? President of the Institute for Scientific Research of the Third Millennium Ilya Belous points out that among the passengers were 20 employees of the American company Freescale Semiconductor, which produces chips, semiconductors and other electronic equipment, including military technologies. Moreover, these employees were not Americans. 12 of them were Malaysians, 8 were Chinese. And they had a number of patents in the military field. Perhaps they wanted to force them to work for the American government under supervision. And the plane with the remaining passengers was simply liquidated.

But if all this is so, then it is very unlikely that we will ever learn about the true fate of the fatal Boeing. After all, the special services know how to hide loose ends.

“An Asian passenger of the dramatic flight MH370, who escaped from captivity near Kandahar, reached a village called Shahraz (to be specified). In about a week, data about this will be transferred to China (it is not known whether this will become public knowledge worldwide). As it turned out, the purpose of the sudden hijacking of the Malaysian Boeing 777-200-ER airliner was to suppress the American side’s attempt by a group of special specialists to get from Malaysia to China.” An anonymous source in the special services told an MK correspondent about this in a confidential manner. This information is published in the world media for the first time.

Collage: wordpress.com.

The day before, a source from the intelligence services told MK on condition of anonymity that, according to available data, the hijacked passengers of the airliner that suddenly disappeared on March 8, 2014, flying flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing began to die due to unbearable conditions of detention.

In the first ten days of April, MK, with reference to special services, reported that the nickname of the attacker who forced the Boeing pilots to hijack a Malaysia Airlines plane, which carried a total of 239 people, was Hich. Nothing was known about his accomplices. The pilots of flight MH370 were not guilty of the hijacking, a fairly authoritative source from the special services assured the MK correspondent on condition of anonymity.

The Boeing 777-200ER, flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing (route length - 4417 km), suddenly disappeared on March 8, 2014. Boeing 777-200ER of Malaysia Airlines flew jointly with

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The missing Boeing 777 flew for several more hours after the crew “lost” communication with dispatchers.

Chinese China Southern Airlines flight with 227 passengers on board from 14 countries, including 5 children under 5 years of age and 12 crew members (including two pilots). The majority of passengers - 153 - were Chinese citizens (one was a permanent resident of Hong Kong). Among the passengers was the only Russian - 43-year-old businessman Nikolai Brodsky from Irkutsk. He was returning from a vacation in Bali, where he had been diving. Four people who had tickets for this flight were late for check-in and did not get on the plane. At least two passengers (Italian Luigi Maraldi and Austrian Christian Kozel), who were on the lists, were not on board: the Iranians, Puria Nur Mohammad Merdad and Delaware Seyed-Mohammadreza, purchased tickets using their passports and boarded the flight .

Flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 at 00:41:13 local time. At 01:19:24, Kuala Lumpur Control handed over flight MH370 to controllers in Ho Chi Minh City, which was confirmed by the airliner's crew. Flight MH370 was last recorded on radar at 01:21:13, but the pilots did not contact air traffic controllers in Ho Chi Minh City. After this, contact with the plane was completely lost. At 01:38, Vietnamese air traffic controllers asked their colleagues in Kuala Lumpur where flight MH370 had gone?

After unsuccessful attempts to locate the missing plane, Kuala Lumpur air traffic controllers contacted Malaysia Airlines flight control at 02:15, where they assumed that the plane was in Cambodian airspace. However, controllers at the Cambodian ATM center noted that the crew did not contact them. Vietnamese dispatchers, in turn, emphasized that according to the flight plan, the Boeing 777 airliner was not supposed to fly through Cambodian airspace. Over the next few hours, dispatchers and airline representatives tried in vain to establish any communication with the plane and determine its location. As a result, after four hours of unsuccessful attempts, a request was sent at 05:30 to begin an official search and rescue operation.

There are seven known messages received from flight MH370 via the Aeronautical Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) following the loss of contact with the airliner, including the last one at 08:19.

So, to this day, no one knows anything about flight MH-370. Malaysia, Australia and China agreed to continue the search for the missing plane, which will now be more focused on studying the seabed (April searches in the Indian Ocean did not bring results).

At the end of April, tired of the uncertainty and unconvincing methods of searching for the missing airliner, with a letter about checking the version of the location of the missing plane, put forward for the first time (March 31) Russian newspaper“Moskovsky Komsomolets” (website) with reference to anonymous sources in the intelligence services. Extra-exclusive information from "MK" was urgently made public in various languages ​​and was instantly disseminated by the world's media (an example and another example), blogs and social networks (in various languages ​​of the world).

Investigation Expert aviation accidents from the Center for Scientific and Technical Research and Expertise (Moscow), the most experienced Soviet-Russian aviator Evgeny Kuzminov explained to the MK correspondent that “such an aircraft could easily land on an ordinary dirt road of a less dense surface about 2000 meters long. Although, of course, for this there must be free approaches to runway- that is, there should be no trees and mountains. With a hard landing on a “bad” surface, of course, the landing gear could break or even the wing could break” (the estimated weight of the hijacked Boeing 777-200ER with passengers, crew and cargo is about 200 tons). Evgeny Kuzminov recalled a similar airliner landing that took place in the USSR in 1968, as a result of which.

For foreign media

This information was not published in the world media : " A Russian newspaper has claimed that Flight MH370 was hijacked by "unknown terrorists" and flown to Afghanistan, where the crew and passengers are now being held hostage. The extraordinary comments, attributed to an Intelligence source, appeared in the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper. The source told the paper: "Flight MH370 Malaysia Airlines missing on March 8 with 239 passengers was hijacked. Pilots are not guilty; the plane was hijacked by unknown terrorists. We know that the name of the terrorist who gave instructions to pilots is "Hitch "The plane is in Afghanistan not far from Kandahar near the border with Pakistan." Moskovsky Komsomolets also claims the passengers have been divided into seven groups and are living in mud huts with almost no food. Twenty Asian passengers were said to have been smuggled into a bunker in Pakistan .

TALLINN, March 7 – Sputnik. The Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Boeing 777-200 with 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board, flying jointly with China Southern Airlines flight MH370 from the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur to Beijing (China), disappeared from radar screens at 02:40 Malaysian time on March 8, 2014 (March 7, 22:40 Moscow time), without giving any signals about problems on board, other problems or a change in course. The last message from the plane was: “Everything is fine, good night.”

At the time of last contact - literally a minute before entering Vietnam's air control zone - the airliner was over the South China Sea, 220 kilometers from the eastern coast of Malaysia. The weather in the area of ​​the disappearance was good. The plane was flown by experienced pilots (the captain, 53-year-old Malaysian Zachary Ahmad Shah, had worked at MAS since 1981, with almost 18,500 hours of flight time; 27-year-old co-pilot Farik Ab Namid had 2,763 hours of flight time). The airliner underwent a full inspection just ten days before this flight.

On board the missing plane were 154 passengers from China and Taiwan, 38 Malaysians, seven Indonesians, six Australians, five Indians, four French, three US citizens, two each New Zealanders, Ukrainians and Canadians, one resident each from Russia, Italy, the Netherlands and Austria. However, the real nationality of at least two of those on board was then called into question due to evidence that they used stolen passports. According to Interpol, the two Iranians were traveling on the passports of an Austrian and an Italian. According to the international law enforcement organization, they were not related to terrorists, but were heading to Europe as illegal migrants.

Among the 227 passengers on the plane, 20 were employees of one company - Freescale Semiconductor, a former subsidiary of Motorola, headquartered in Texas (USA), which produces semiconductor equipment, including components for defense equipment and on-board navigation systems.

The missing Boeing was carrying not only passengers, but also more than seven tons of cargo, some of which was not named. transportation documents. The plane was carrying 4,566 tons of mangosteens (the fruit of a tropical tree), as well as a shipment of lithium batteries (200 kilograms), which was part of a separate cargo that weighed 2.4 tons. A Malaysian Airlines spokesman said the cargo consisted of "radio accessories and chargers."

The transportation of the unknown cargo was ordered by the Beijing branch of the logistics company HHR Global Logistics, but another company, JHJ International Transportation Co.Ltd, had to pick up the delivered goods on its behalf.

The investigation into the fate of MH370 is being carried out by an independent body led by Malaysia, the state of registry and operator of the aircraft, with assistance from seven countries: the US, UK, France, China, Singapore, Indonesia and Australia.

According to the investigation, the airliner remained in flight for several hours after air traffic controllers lost contact with it, and made three turns, one of them to the left. As a result, the plane headed west, and then south, towards Antarctica.

Experts reconstructed the plane's route using military radar records. Means of objective control (radar of the Royal Air Force base at west coast Malacca Peninsula) recorded that flight MH370 did not fly for long in the direction of Beijing. Over the Malaysian city of Kota Bharu, located near the coast of the South China Sea, the liner changed course and crossed Malaysia for the second time in the opposite, southwestern direction. Radars lost it over the Gulf of Malacca, south of the city Kuala Lumpur.

About 40 minutes into the flight, someone turned off the plane's navigation instruments, communications with ground services, even the ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System) system, which is accessible only from the cockpit.

Almost at the same time, the airliner strayed from its intended course, remaining unnoticed in air traffic control zones.

The board indicated its existence in space only by electronic messages to Inmarsat satellites. According to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, after the disappearance of the Boeing 777-200, Inmarsat telecommunications satellites received electronic pulses from the on-board terminal for another seven hours, informing about the status of the aircraft's systems. Later, based on analysis of satellite information, Inmarsat concluded that the flight could have ended in the southern Indian Ocean.

Signals from the missing plane's black boxes were not recorded. Meanwhile, under favorable circumstances, they should have been heard several hundred miles away.

A full-scale search and rescue operation was organized to search for the missing airliner. 26 countries took part in it, including Russia.

A massive multinational search and rescue operation was carried out sequentially, first in the South China Sea, then in the Strait of Malacca and the Andaman Sea, and when results could not be achieved there, searchers focused on a wide area in the southern Indian Ocean. The joint actions of almost 80 ships and aircraft from 15 countries of the world, dozens of satellites, hundreds of fishing vessels, ground monitoring stations, hundreds of thousands of “cyber volunteers” and even sorcerers on the anniversary of the tragedy did not produce the slightest result: not even the tiniest fragment of the missing airliner was found and drops of fuel from its tanks.

At the end of January 2015, the Malaysian Civil Aviation Department officially declared all those on board the airliner dead and what happened to the plane as an accident.

On March 8, 2015, on the anniversary of the tragedy, an expert report was published on the results of a year-long investigation into the disappearance of the airliner, conducted by order of the Malaysian Ministry of Transport. It contained many technical details, such as the fact that the power source for the underwater acoustic beacon had expired a year before the plane disappeared, but it is not clear whether this fact had any impact on the investigation. In addition, in the published report, experts came to the conclusion that there were no technical anomalies on board and that the aircraft crew had nothing to blame. Experts noted that the 580-page report is interim and technical, since the most massive and expensive search operation in world history has not yet led to success.

By that time, the Malaysian authorities alone had spent about 20 million euros searching for the missing airliner.

In April 2015, the governments of Malaysia, Australia and China, participating in the search operation, announced a decision to double the search area, as a result of which it was expanded to 120 thousand square kilometers. At that time, more than half of the priority zone at the bottom of the Indian Ocean (more than 50 thousand square kilometers) had been surveyed. However, despite the use of sophisticated sonar equipment and assistance from the governments of a number of countries, by that time no traces of the aircraft could be found. The first discovery in 16 months as part of the investigation into the disappearance of the Boeing 777-200 airliner of Malaysia Airlines was a fragment of a wing (a flaperon designed to control the roll angle), found on July 29, 2015 on the French island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean - thousands of kilometers from the main area. exploration work ongoing in Australia. The wreckage of an unidentified plane was found by beach cleaners near the city of San Andre. It was filled with shells, indicating a long stay in the water.

After studying the found fragment of the plane, specialists from the Australian-led Search Coordination Center (JACC), Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, and the French prosecutor's office confirmed that it belongs to the missing airliner.

By the end of 2015, 80 thousand square kilometers of the search area were surveyed. Other debris was also found in the Indian Ocean.

In the summer of 2016, new versions of the plane crash appeared. In July, media reported, citing Malaysian police documents, that the pilot of Malaysian airliner MH370, Zachary Ahmad Shah, had taken a simulator flight into the southern Indian Ocean less than a month before the plane allegedly disappeared in the same area. According to the documents, Malaysian police provided the FBI with hard drives on which the pilot recorded routes practiced in a homemade home flight simulator. Investigators believe the path taken by MH370's commander is largely consistent with the one the plane may have followed before it disappeared. Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai later said there was no evidence that the pilot of the missing airliner intentionally sent it into the ocean.

In August, Australian media, citing an analysis by the Australian Department of Defense, reported that a Boeing 777-200 fell into the Indian Ocean at high speed, which may indicate an uncontrolled crash. According to the automatic signals that the airliner gave in the last minutes of the flight, the plane fell "very quickly - at speeds of up to 20 thousand feet per minute (6096 meters per minute)." Experts concluded that the crash occurred after the plane ran out of fuel and two engines caught fire - "first the left one, and 15 minutes later the right one."

On January 17, 2017, representatives of Australia, Malaysia and China agreed to suspend the search for the missing Malaysian Boeing MH370, which had been going on for more than two years. According to the joint statement of the three states, despite all efforts made, the use of the latest technologies, modeling techniques and consultations of highly qualified and best-in-class specialists, the aircraft could not be found during the search.

Malaysia has allowed individuals and organizations to conduct the search for the missing MH370.

At the end of February 2017, 25 pieces of MH370 debris had been confirmed. Malaysia has reached a memorandum of understanding with African countries whose shores are washed by the Indian Ocean. According to the agreement, the African side pledged to help recover any likely debris that might wash up on its shores.

The team investigating the disappearance of the plane is preparing a final report, which will be published within a year.

Ilya Oganjanov

Authorities in Australia, China and Malaysia announced the end of the search for the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200. The plane was flying flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and disappeared from radar screens on the night of March 8, 2014. There were 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board. 26 states tried to unravel the mystery of the crash. The total cost of the investigation into the crash was close to $200 million. The fragments found did not help shed light on the reasons for the disappearance of the aircraft. Read about the main versions of the tragedy, including mystical ones, and why none of them have received confirmation.

• Reuters

Chronicle of the tragedy

On March 8, 2014 at 00:42 Malaysia time, Boeing MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The flight took place as usual. The last time the crew made contact was at 01:19 - when moving from the area of ​​​​responsibility of the Malaysian controllers to the Vietnamese ones. The pilots wished their Malaysian colleagues “Good night”. At 01:21, the transponders transmitting information about the location of the aircraft and its identification data were switched off. At 01:22, the Boeing disappeared from the radar screens of air traffic control services. After that, he was in the air for about seven more hours, but radically deviated from the planned route. At 08:11, the last signal was sent from the plane to the Inmarsat satellite, through which the Boeing 777 transmitted technical information about the operation of its Rolls-Royce engines to ground services. At 09:15, the airliner no longer responded to a communication request from Inmarsat.

The liner was searched in the South China and Andaman seas, in the Strait of Malacca and in the Indian Ocean. The area of ​​the study territories is 7.7 million km². Deep-sea searches were also carried out over an area of ​​60,000 km².

• RIA News

Restore by fragments

The first fragment of the airliner was discovered only a year after the disappearance of MH370 - in July 2015, a wing part and a door were found on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean. The rest of the finds occurred in 2016: in March, aircraft wreckage was discovered on the shore of the strait between Madagascar and Mozambique, in May a fragment of a wing was found on the island of Mauritius, and in June another part of the wing was found off the coast of Tanzania. However, all this did not help narrow the search area for the airliner and determine its location.

Uncontrolled fall

One of the versions put forward by experts is that the plane crashed. According to this hypothesis, the airliner was not controlled by the pilot at the fatal moment. This, according to Australian Transport Safety Authority spokesman Greg Hood, is indicated by an analysis of Boeing signals. Presumably the airliner fell on March 9, 2014 at 08:19. At that moment, it ran out of fuel and two engines caught fire. According to experts, the plane crashed into the Indian Ocean at enormous speed - up to 20 thousand feet (6096 m) per minute. The board most likely collided with the ocean surface at almost a right angle. This explains his disappearance without a trace.

Human factor

Many people call the crew commander, Zachary Ahmad Shah, the culprit of the tragedy. The FBI searched his home and found a simulator simulating an airliner cockpit. Decryption of the hard drives showed that about a month before the crash, the pilot was practicing a route that would lead to the ship crashing into the Indian Ocean. This is exactly what investigators believe Ahmad Shah did in reality. The alleged reason for this action is depression due to the upcoming divorce from his wife.

• Boeing crew commander Zachary Ahmad Shah (right) with friend Peter Chong (left).
• Reuters

Information or life

Among the scenarios for the disappearance of Boeing, there are also truly detective ones - the plane was hijacked and landed at one of the military airfields. The target of the hijacking was the 20 leading scientists on board (12 Chinese and 8 Malaysians) of Freescale Semiconductor, who were developing cutting-edge technologies for aircraft, making them invisible to radars and camouflage devices.

This version is confirmed by the fact that Zachary Ahmad Shah also practiced landing on his home flight simulator at five airfields in the Indian Ocean region, including the runway at the US military base Diego Garcia. Shortly before the fateful flight, for some reason he erased this data, as well as all his work and social plans in his diary.

An even more twisted version of hijacking for the sake of obtaining invaluable information on stealth technology belongs to former pilot Delta airlines to Field McConnell. He claims that the plane's crew was eliminated, after which MH370 was intercepted by the US military and remotely landed on the island of Diego Garcia at a secret US Air Force base. The airliner was then allegedly lifted into the air again using the same remote control and sank in the Indian Ocean.

• A suspected plane wreck was discovered off the east coast of Africa.

Mysterious cargo

The conspiracy theories don't end there. The reason for the disappearance of Boeing is also called a certain mysterious cargo that was on board. In addition to luggage, the plane allegedly carried about 4 tons of exotic mangosteen fruit, 220 kg of lithium batteries for phones and computers, as well as 2 tons of some electronic equipment, the sender of which was “classified by agreement with the airline.”

Operation anti-terror

Another version says that the Boeing was captured by terrorists and shot down. According to the former head of the French airlines Proteus Airlines, Marc Dugen, the plane was destroyed by the American military, who suspected that the airliner was hijacked by terrorists. This is how the Americans played it safe to prevent a repeat of the events of September 11, 2001. This option is supported by the fact that there were two passengers on board using false passports - Iranians Puriya Nur Mohammad Merdad and Delavar Seyed-Mohammadreza.

Simply fantastic

There are absolutely fantastic versions of the disappearance of the Malaysian Boeing. Over the course of two years, a lot of them accumulated: the plane became invisible, fell into a black hole or into a new one Bermuda Triangle. However, so far no one has been able to test either these or more realistic hypotheses.