Final Report Released on Malaysian Flight That Disappeared Over Indian Ocean

The final report released on the Malaysian Airlines aircraft that disappeared concludes that it is “inconceivable and unacceptable” that it has never been found.

Flight MH370 vanished on March 8, 2014, somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean. There were 239 people aboard the flight going from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

In a 440-page final report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), it was concluded that the reasons for the loss of the aircraft could not be established with certainty.

“It is almost inconceivable and certainly societally unacceptable in the modern aviation era…for a large commercial aircraft to be missing and for the world not to know with certainty what became of the aircraft and those on board,” the report stated.

The report explained that the pilot had flown a route on his home flight simulator six weeks before the plane disappeared that was “initially similar.” However, the flight path made a drastically different turn than what was planned.

The aircraft was thought to have diverted from the flight path by thousands of miles over the southern Indian Ocean. It eventually crashed off the coast of Western Australia.

“By the last data point the aircraft had flown approximately 4,200 nautical miles,” the report said. “This was further than was possible with the fuel loaded on board the aircraft for flight MH370.”

The underwater search for the plane, which led the underwater hunt, was called off in January. The unsuccessful 1,046-day hunt for the plane included searching above and below the surface of the Indian Ocean and took into account the scientific analyses of satellite pictures and sea currents.

“The understanding of where MH370 may be located is better now than it has ever been,” the ATSB said. “The underwater search has eliminated most of the high probability areas.”

“We…deeply regret that we have not been able to locate the aircraft, nor those 239 souls on board that remain missing,” the report stated.