The first piece of debris was found on Reunion Island on July 29, 2015, by Johny Begue.
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Cyndi Hendry, a volunteer for now-defunct satellite imagery company Tomnod, found what looked like plane debris in the South China Sea only days after the plane vanished on March 8, 2014. She said her discovery was ignored at the time when it was thought to have crashed into the Indian Ocean.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) led the underwater search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean, including analysis of the search area, the sea floor mapping and sea floor search.
In November 2022 a Dutch court found Girkin and two others guilty of murder; the court also ruled that the missile that destroyed the plane had come from Russia and that it had been fired by Russian-led troops in Russian-controlled territory.
In 2014 all the families of passengers and crew on board MH370 were offered interim payments of US$50,000, non-conditional and regardless of any legal action, which some accepted. But as the third anniversary of the disappearance of the plane nears, no other resolution seems in sight.
What happened to MH370? No one knows what exactly happened, and there are several conspiracy theories. The flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia on 8 March 2014 and was flying towards its planned destination, Beijing Capital International Airport in China.
Despite extensive search operations, the MH370 was never found. Some claims about the MH370 debris washing ashore did pop up now and then, but there was never any conclusive evidence or claims that the debris actually was of MH370. No dead bodies were found either and neither was the plane's black box.
Possible causes of the aircraft's disappearanceThat the signals had likely been switched off from inside the aircraft suggested suicide by one of the crew, but nothing obviously suspicious was found in the behaviour of the captain, the first officer, or the cabin crew immediately prior to the flight.
The Malaysian passengers on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 included Datin Biby Nazli Mohd Hassim, Chen Wei Hiong, Karmooi Chew, Ch'ng Mei Ling, Anne Daisy, Dina Mohamed Ramli, Huajin Guan, Puiheng Hue, Lee Kah Kin, Lee Sew Chu and Lim Pou Chua, among others.
According to CNN, investigators from Boeing — the plane's manufacturer — conducted a photo assessment of the wreckage and were able confirm an indentification number that corresponds with a Boeing 777 part.
MH370 Pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah. While it seems incriminating, a member of the Independent Group - a watchdog group of aviation experts dedicated to the MH370 case - said it wasn't a “smoking gun”.
In the case of MH370, the authorities believe that the primary transponder was turned off, and the backup didn't activate. In any case, once an aircraft is more than 240km (150 miles) out to sea, radar coverage fades and air crew keep in touch with air traffic control and other aircraft using high-frequency radio.
Not only did this confirm the plane was not intact, but modelling of ocean currents concluded that MH370 crashed in the southern Indian Ocean near Western Australia, and ocean currents then transported debris to Africa a year later.
Some 83 aircraft have been declared “missing” since 1948, according to data compiled by the Aviation Safety Network. The list includes planes capable of carrying more than 14 passengers and where no trace — bodies or debris — has ever been found. Related Graphic: Where Could Flight 370 Be? >>
Several other planes have disappeared in the region including five US bombers that vanished in 1945, but in spite of massive air and sea searches, no trace of the bodies or aircraft was ever found. In 2009 a flight from Rio De Janeiro to Paris crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, killing 228 passengers and crew.