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Race against time: HMAS Toowoomba and HMAS Success looking for MH370's black box.
IT is now 30 days since Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared. A multinational team has tirelessly scoured the possible search and rescue sites, from the South China Sea to the Malacca Straits, Andaman Sea and the remote Indian Ocean, with no sign of the missing aircraft.
The massive hunt has even been dubbed by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott as “the most difficult search in human history,” as time runs out to recover the aircraft’s black box before batteries pinging their location die out.
We retrace the journey in search of the lost jet.
D-Day: March 8
12:41am: Flight MH370 takes off from Kuala Lumpur, bound for Beijing, with 239 passengers and crew on board.
1:07am: It sends last Acars transmission.
1:19am: Last words from the cockpit, “Good Night Malaysian Three Seven Zero” (Initially revealed as “Alright, good night”) as plane leaves Malaysian airspace towards Vietnam.
1:21am: Radar transponder is switched off.
1:37am: The scheduled Acars transmission is not sent.
2:15am: Malaysian military radar spots an unidentified blip on the west side of Peninsular Malaysia.
6:30am: MH370 fails to arrive as scheduled in Beijing.
8:11am: Last satellite signal sent from the plane, known as a “handshake,” is detected.
8:19am: A “partial handshake” is sent.
10.30am: MAS confirms MH370 was missing.
noon: MAS holds a press conference to announce that MH370 has disappeared. Search and rescue operation is launched in the South China Sea.
1pm: China dispatches two ships to the South China Sea for the search and rescue.
6pm: Vietnam, Singapore, the Philippines and the United States send aircraft and ships to help.
8:40pm: Vietnamese planes spot two large oil slicks near the plane’s last known location, but they turn out to be a false alarm.
9pm: Two passengers found travelling on stolen EU passports, fuelling speculations of terrorism.
March 9
RMAF chief reveals plane deviated from its route and inexplicably turned back towards KL.
March 10
Malaysia and Vietnam send ships to investigate a sighting of a possible life raft - just flotsam.
March 11
Malaysian authorities and Interpol confirm passengers with stolen passports are Iranians looking to migrate to Europe and are not associated with terrorism.
RMAF chief says they are investigating an unidentified object detected on military radar north of the Malacca Strait less than an hour after the plane lost contact.
The search expands to include the Malacca Strait and Andaman Sea.
US regulators say they had warned of a “cracking and corrosion” problem on some Boeing 777s that could lead to a mid-air break-up; Boeing confirms MH370 is not affected.
March 13
Chinese satellite shows floating objects between the South China Sea and the Gulf of Thailand. Malaysia sends an aircraft to check - China admits it is a false lead.
March 14
The White House indicates that MH370 may have flown on towards the Indian Ocean after losing contact.
March 15
Satellite data places the jet anywhere on one of two huge arcs: a northern corridor stretching into Central Asia or a southern corridor swooping far into the Indian Ocean.
MH307 movements are “consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane,” says PM Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.
The search in the South China Sea is called off.
Malaysia probes possible pilot and crew involvement.
March 16
12 more countries join the search operation, upping the total to 26.
Police search the homes of pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah and co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid.
March 17
Officials confirm the last cockpit communication came before the transponder was shut down; Malaysia Airlines believes the voice to be co-pilot Fariq’s.
Police probe a potential political motive on the part of Captain Zaharie, a supporter and distant relative of Malaysian Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.
Australia leads the search in the remote Indian Ocean.
None of the countries on the northern corridor reports any radar contact with MH370.
March 18
The disappearance becomes the longest in modern aviation history.
US joins Australia in its Indian Ocean search.
China clears the 153 Chinese passengers.
Desperate relatives of the Chinese passengers threaten to go on hunger strike unless they get the “full truth” from Malaysian Government.
March 19
The FBI probes the pilot’s home flight simulator.
An analysis of the 777’s probable fuel reserves narrows the Indian Ocean search area to half, or about the size of Italy.
Malaysia says checks on their citizens on board MH370 raise no red flags.
The Thai air force concedes that its military radar had picked up MH370 just minutes after it was diverted.
March 20
An Australian satellite image dated March 16 shows two objects in the southern Indian Ocean.
Four surveillance aircraft and a Norwegian merchant ship dispatched to the area fail to locate the objects due to bad weather.
Air searches turn up nothing.
March 22
China’s satellite scans reveal a new image of possible debris in the search zone.
March 23
A French satellite data shows traces of possible debris while a wooden pellet is sighted.
More aircraft and ships with specialist equipment arrive to join the hunt.
March 24
China and Australia reveal new, separate sightings of floating objects.
At night, PM states that Inmarsat satellite data shows MH370 “ended in the Indian Ocean”, far from “any possible landing sites”. MAS issues a message that “we have to assume beyond reasonable doubt” that the plane was lost at sea and no one had survived.
March 25
Gale-force winds and huge waves halt the Indian Ocean search operation.
Angry relatives of Chinese passengers protest outside the Malaysian Embassy in Beijing.
March 26
European aerospace giant Airbus share satellite images of 122 floating objects in the southern Indian Ocean.
March 27
Search operations suspended due to bad weather.
Thailand reports fresh sightings of possible debris in the southern Indian Ocean. A Japanese satellite also detected possible debris.
March 28
Radar data indicates MH370 flew faster than earlier estimated, refocusing the hunt some 1,100km to the northeast in the Indian Ocean.
Search resumes as the weather clears.
Police clear all MH370 passengers, continue investigating crew members.
March 29
The first “possible debris” are recovered from the Indian Ocean.
Malaysia officials discover nothing unusual on Captain Zaharie’s flight simulator, but FBI still investigating it.
March 30
The objects retrieved on March 29 identified as fishing equipment and flotsam.
March 31
Australian ship Ocean Shield departs for the search area after being fitted with “ping” detecting equipment.
April 1
Malaysia released the full transcript of communications between MH370 and Kuala Lumpur’s air traffic control which showed different last words, raising fresh criticisms of the inconsistency of information.
The transcript shows nothing abnormal.
British submarine HMS Tireless arrives in the Indian Ocean to detect the pings of the aircraft’s black box.
April 2
British Royal Navy ship HMS Echo joins the search.
Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson lends his private plane for the hunt.
April 3
Australia agrees to be an “accredited representative” of Malaysia in the MH370 investigation.
The search zone is “further refined” and shifted north.
April 4
Search teams begin using towed pinger locators to hunt for MH370 black box.
April 5
The search continues with 13 planes and 11 ships, as the clock ticks on the signal from its black box.
A Chinese vessel reportedly picks up a “ping” signal, raising hopes of a breakthrough.
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