# MH370 went missing on 08 March 2014. Aviation’s biggest mystery continues. Amazing **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 7, 2023, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-went-missing-on-08-march-2014-aviation-s-biggest-mystery-continues-amazing/980835 "2023-03-07T14:50:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2023, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-went-missing-on-08-march-2014-aviation-s-biggest-mystery-continues-amazing/980835/21 "2023-03-08T17:13:13Z")
> [@K364](#): > > There’s a new Netflix documentary out tomorrow. Don’t know if there will be anything new in it. > [https://youtu.be/TDg0m2Q3H8c](https://youtu.be/TDg0m2Q3H8c) Thanks. I will look for this and watch it. More: I’m guessing there won’t be much or anything new, but it’ll recap what is already known and will review the leading plausible theories. In other words just read the wiki article. > **[Malaysia Airlines Flight 370](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370)** > > Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370/MAS370)\[a\] was an international passenger flight operated by Malaysia Airlines that disappeared from radar on 8 March 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia to its planned destination, Beijing Capital International Airport in China. The reason for the disappearance has not been conclusively determined. The crew of the Boeing 777-200ER, registered as 9M-MRO, last communicated with air traffic control (ATC) around 38 minutes aft... ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2023, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-went-missing-on-08-march-2014-aviation-s-biggest-mystery-continues-amazing/980835/22 "2023-03-08T17:33:52Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Is that anything like _Regretting What I Said to You When You Called Me 11:00 On a Friday Morning to Tell Me that at 1:00 Friday Afternoon You’re Gonna Leave Your Office, Go Downstairs Hail a Cab to Go Out to the Airport to Catch a Plane to Go Skiing In the Alps for Two Weeks, Not that I Wanted to Go With You, I Wasn’t Able to Leave Town, I’m Not a Very Good Skier, I Couldn’t Expect You to Pay My Way, But After Going Out With You for Three Years I Don’t Like Surprises!!_ You forgot the subtitle, “A Musical Apology”. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2023, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-went-missing-on-08-march-2014-aviation-s-biggest-mystery-continues-amazing/980835/23 "2023-03-08T18:48:35Z")
Thanks for that. It’s a funny thing, 12 year old me saw the film seven times in the cinema and countless times on video and always thought the enemy were Russian. I think simply because they were flying “MIGs”. I was well aware of many other inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and inventions, and used to pick the movie apart while simultaneously loving it. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2023, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-went-missing-on-08-march-2014-aviation-s-biggest-mystery-continues-amazing/980835/24 "2023-03-08T19:10:19Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > I was well aware of many other inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and inventions, and used to pick the movie apart while simultaneously loving it. You just have to treat it as occurring in an alternate universe. I do have to correct myself, though; apparently Red Banner Pacific Fleet did perform some operations in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea—mostly mine-clearing and port flagging—but no naval aviation, so the mystery of the combatant nation in _Top Gun_ remains. However, the enemy nation in _Top Gun: Maverick_ is quite obviously…Finland. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2023, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-went-missing-on-08-march-2014-aviation-s-biggest-mystery-continues-amazing/980835/25 "2023-03-08T19:37:50Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > I just recently heard some commentary, most likely on NPR because that’s where I usually hear things like that, about how there’s something of a trend of movie titles that just literally state what the movie is about. A few decades ago a horror movie might have a name like “Mortal Terror” or something evocative like that. Now it’s just “Cocaine Bear”. [/hijack] When I lived in Mexico, I would complain that the Spanish translations of English-language films often did this – e.g., _Jaws_ was called _Tiburon!_ (which simply means _Shark!_) [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2023, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-went-missing-on-08-march-2014-aviation-s-biggest-mystery-continues-amazing/980835/26 "2023-03-08T23:28:11Z")
Because the opening scene aerial fighting in the original _TopGun_ was done over water, I had always assumed the adversaries were meant to be Libyan or similar. Essentially a replay of the real world Gulf of Sidra incident\* which was then 5 years previous. So some random difficult Middle Eastern country equipped w Russian / Soviet equipment. Of which there were several candidates at the time. Whether the scene of the battle was the Med, the IO, the Arabian Gulf, or wherever was deliberately left vague. * * * \* > **[Gulf of Sidra incident (1981)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Sidra_incident_(1981))** > > US Victory > In the first Gulf of Sidra incident, 19 August 1981, two Libyan Su-22 Fitters fired upon two U.S. F-14 Tomcats and were subsequently shot down off the Libyan coast. Libya had claimed that the entire Gulf was their territory, at 32° 30′ N, with an exclusive 62-nautical-mile (115 km; 71 mi) fishing zone, which Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi asserted as "The Line of Death" in 1973. Two further incidents occurred in the area in 1986 and in 1989. > In 1973, Libya claimed the Gulf of Sidra as... ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2023, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-went-missing-on-08-march-2014-aviation-s-biggest-mystery-continues-amazing/980835/27 "2023-03-09T01:22:28Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > The sequel had a mystery nation. You’ve heard of the French Nation? The Chinese Nation? Well, this was the Imaja Nation. Count me as one that thought the OG Top Gun was fighting Russians. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2023, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-went-missing-on-08-march-2014-aviation-s-biggest-mystery-continues-amazing/980835/28 "2023-03-09T04:39:38Z")
I hate to hijack the _Top Gun_ thread, but just wanted to say I watched the three part doc on Netflix. It covers all bases but gives way too much time to the theories of an aviation blogger and a French journalist, either of whom could give Giorgio Tsoukalos a run for his money. ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2023, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-went-missing-on-08-march-2014-aviation-s-biggest-mystery-continues-amazing/980835/29 "2023-03-09T04:49:35Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Well, this was the Imaja Nation They have lots of unobtanium ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2023, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-went-missing-on-08-march-2014-aviation-s-biggest-mystery-continues-amazing/980835/30 "2023-03-09T05:58:20Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > When I lived in Mexico, I would complain that the Spanish translations of English-language films often did this – e.g., _Jaws_ was called _Tiburon!_ (which simply means _Shark!_) [/hijack] [Reactivate hijack] Not nearly as bad as the Korean translation for _The Sixth Sense_ … > **Spoiler** > > _He’s a Ghost!_ ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2023, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-went-missing-on-08-march-2014-aviation-s-biggest-mystery-continues-amazing/980835/31 "2023-03-09T13:41:13Z")
For real? Wow. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2023, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-went-missing-on-08-march-2014-aviation-s-biggest-mystery-continues-amazing/980835/32 "2023-03-09T15:02:39Z")
I feel like if they would just spoil M. Night Shyamalan films up front, viewers would be nearly as let down by the ‘surprise’ ending. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2023, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-went-missing-on-08-march-2014-aviation-s-biggest-mystery-continues-amazing/980835/33 "2023-03-09T16:27:15Z")
on a (vaguely) related tangent: in about 2015 I bumped into a U. of Sheffield (?) scientist who worked on “autonomous sensors” (i.e. sensors that do not need external AC or DC fed to them) on - amongst other applications - Rolls Royce jet engines. He said they had developed a sensor that would ping to a satelite every couple of seconds to inform the GPS location of the sensor (using the engine’s vibrations to create the energy needed for the sensor/radio package to work). And he used the MH370 as an example for his work _…had they only spent a couple of 100s of $ more on their airplane-spec, they’d know fairly certain where it is (and possibly an aproximation of what happened)_ this conversation stuck with me for 8 years now. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2023, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-went-missing-on-08-march-2014-aviation-s-biggest-mystery-continues-amazing/980835/34 "2023-03-09T23:21:26Z")
I was looking forward to this “documentary” and was greatly disappointed. Much of the strong opinions people had about the incident seemed to stem from profound disbelief that a plane can “just disappear” and particularly that no wreckage or physical trace was found (up to the point some was). I drove my wife nuts yelling “The ocean is vast and deep!” at the television repeatedly. LIke “Titanic was lost in 1912 in a fairly well-known area and still wasn’t found until the '80s” vast and deep. And that’s before we get to the Mustache-Twirlingly Evil _Les Americains_/Conspiracy of The Anglosphere “theory” which fails for (among various reasons) the same reason as “we didn’t really go to the Moon” fails: the other side – China, in this instance – has absolutely no bloody reason not to yell from the rooftops about what the Americans allegedly did/didn’t do. The Russian theory was plausible by comparison, but **only** by comparison (it requires a Russian agent to be self-sacrificing just for a diversion). ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2023, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-went-missing-on-08-march-2014-aviation-s-biggest-mystery-continues-amazing/980835/35 "2023-03-10T16:00:53Z")
I just watched it and have to agree with you. The “America has always known what happened to MH370” theory is weak, and it’s ludicrous that two AWACS planes would jam the communications of that B777. Further, to claim that fighters would automatically be scrambled for the overflying civilian jetliner simply because there was a joint US-Thai military exercise underway is just stupid — the “They would’ve scrambled fighter jets to take assess the jetliner, why didn’t they?” position posited by French journalist Florence de Changy is plain idiocy. ISTM that these explanations were a feeble attempt to identify a new smoking gun that hadn’t been identified before. Otherwise I found the documentary to be a pretty good overview of the mystery. I just found and downloaded the PDF of the MH370 Safety Investigation Report and will be reading that. It is dated 02 Jul 2014, so it have to be a very preliminary report. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2023, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-went-missing-on-08-march-2014-aviation-s-biggest-mystery-continues-amazing/980835/36 "2023-03-10T16:19:11Z")
Here is that report: > **[20140308-0\_B772\_9M-MRO.pdf](https://reports.aviation-safety.net/2014/20140308-0_B772_9M-MRO.pdf)** > > 8.01 MB ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2023, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-went-missing-on-08-march-2014-aviation-s-biggest-mystery-continues-amazing/980835/37 "2023-03-10T16:23:16Z")
> [@John\_Bredin](#): > > and particularly that no wreckage or physical trace was found (up to the point some was) Weirdly, the finding of wreckage only intensified the conspiracy theories. Why was the ID plate on the flaperon missing? Why was all the other wreckage being found only by that one oddball with connections to Russia? It’s like the JFK assassination; the more evidence discovered, the more people’s perceptions veer from reality. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2023, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-went-missing-on-08-march-2014-aviation-s-biggest-mystery-continues-amazing/980835/38 "2023-03-10T16:36:35Z")
Those questions, and also how only one person, Blaine Gibson, has been uncannily finding much of the debris so far. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2023, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-went-missing-on-08-march-2014-aviation-s-biggest-mystery-continues-amazing/980835/39 "2023-03-10T17:00:12Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Why was the ID plate on the flaperon missing? If the implication is that someone deliberately removed the ID plate, then why would they toss the goddam flaperon back in to the ocean afterward? ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2023, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-went-missing-on-08-march-2014-aviation-s-biggest-mystery-continues-amazing/980835/40 "2023-03-10T17:22:20Z")
The ID plates are apparently removed when a plane is scrapped. So one could theorize that the flaperon is from a scrap yard; not the missing plane. I thought they were going to suggest the parts were from the 777 downed over Eastern Ukraine but I guess there are a lot of those parts available from decommissioned planes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-went-missing-on-08-march-2014-aviation-s-biggest-mystery-continues-amazing/980835.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-went-missing-on-08-march-2014-aviation-s-biggest-mystery-continues-amazing/980835.md?page=3)