10 Years On - The Twin Tragedies of Malaysia Airlines

A deeper look at Flights MH370 and MH17

The article below was first published last year for paid subscribers only. On the tenth anniversary of the plane’s disappearance, I am republishing for everybody.

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On 8 March 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370) completely disappeared. This international passenger flight was flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia to Beijing International Airport in China. It is assumed that the 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board all died.

According to the Aviation Safety Network, the fatal accident rate for airlines is approximately one in 3,000,000. Most airlines will never experience a crash that kills everybody on board.

Malaysia airlines, a company which was in severe financial trouble in 2014, has a fleet of 81 planes which means if each one flies every single day, the airline will make approximately 30,000 flights per year. Therefore, statistically, it may encounter an unfortunate tragedy every 100 years.

So, it is highly unusual that the next fatal crash came less than 6 months later, after 131 days.

This second Malaysia Airlines plane was another Boeing 777, travelling from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol in the Netherlands to Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia. This time, the plane didn’t just vanish, it was blown up over Eastern Ukraine. Sadly, all 282 passengers and 15 crew members were killed.

How rare are deaths on Boeing 777s? Since its maiden flight in 1994, there have been 8 ‘hull loss’ aircraft incidents. Five of these were in-flight whilst three were on the ground. In total, 541 people have lost their lives in Boeing 777 incidents - 536 of them were on the two Malaysia Airlines flights above - and all within 131 days.

What happened to these two flights, were there any people of interest on board and could there be a connection?

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370)

This flight took off from Kuala Lumpur Airport at 00:41 local time (16:41 UTC, 7 March) and was expected to land in Beijing at 06:30 local time (22:30 UTC, 7 March). It was a red-eye flight, meaning it was to take off at night and land in the morning, carrying 227 passengers from 15 nations and 12 Malaysian crew members.

Communications from the aircraft and its transponder signal were lost less than an hour after take-off, while it was over the South China Sea, shortly after it entered Vietnamese airspace. The last verbal contact was a simple acknowledgement of a handover from Malaysia's air traffic control to Vietnam's: "Good night, Malaysian Three Seven Zero."

Following the loss of communications, military radar showed the aircraft deviating from its planned route to cross the Malay Peninsula, after which it was tracked heading northwest up the Malacca Strait. The aircraft left the range of Malaysian military radar at 02:22 while over the Andaman Sea, 200 nautical miles (370 km) northwest of Penang. After that, the aircraft and all its passengers vanished and have never been found.

The disappearance of Flight MH370 is considered highly unusual, not only because it has never been found but also because after the plane's transponder was turned off, it deviated from its planned course. Both the transponder and Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), which automatically transmit flight data to the airline, were switched off or stopped working during the flight.

Furthermore, despite the significant deviation from the flight plan and the loss of communication, no distress signal was ever sent from the aircraft.

One of the most popular theories given by the mainstream media at the time was that the pilot or co-pilot may have deliberately crashed the plane in an act of suicide.

But all these theories focus on the plane crashing. What if it never crashed?

The aircraft was estimated to have enough fuel to fly for approximately 7 more hours from the time it disappeared off radar. In fact, automated satellite communications continued to make "handshakes" with an Inmarsat satellite for several hours after the aircraft disappeared from radar.

The last full handshake was made at 8:19 AM, which would be roughly seven hours after the communications systems were turned off. A final, partial handshake occurred eight minutes later, at 8:27 AM. The "handshakes" or pings between the aircraft and the satellite would stop if the aircraft's systems were powered down or otherwise failed. These handshakes are automatic and occur between the aircraft's communication system and the satellite regardless of whether there is any active data transmission.

The "handshakes" or pings between the aircraft and the satellite can provide some basic information about the aircraft's location, but it is relatively imprecise. These handshakes give the distance between the aircraft and the satellite at the time of each handshake, which creates a series of arcs on the earth's surface along which the plane might have been located.

These arcs resulted in two possible routes the flight may have taken. International searches focussed on route 1, to the west of Australia. You can see the searches that were undertaken on the map below, as well as the location of Diego Garcia.

Diego Garcia is a remote atoll in the Indian Ocean, with a small population primarily consisting of military personnel and civilian contractors associated with the joint UK-US military facility located there. Diego Garcia falls within the broad area described by the arcs and with the amount of fuel on board, the plane could have reached the island.

As Diego Garcia is a US military base, it has a 12,000 foot runway which is more than long enough for a Boeing 777 to land on. In fact, a 777 only requires 7,600 feet to land on.

A week after the disappearance, CNN reported that residents on the nearby Maldives islands saw a “low flying jumbo jet” on the day the plane vanished.

“I’ve never seen a jet flying so low over our island before. We’ve seen seaplanes, but I’m sure that this was not one of those. I could even make out the doors on the plane clearly,” an unidentified eyewitness said, according to Haveeru. “It’s not just me either, several other residents have reported seeing the exact same thing. Some people got out of their houses to see what was causing the tremendous noise too.”

According to these eyewitnesses, the plane was flying towards the southern tip of the Maldives.

During the investigation into the disappearance of Flight 370, it was discovered that the plane's captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, had a flight simulator at his home. Investigators found data on the simulator that included a flight path to the Indian Ocean.

Another oddity was that friends and family members reported ringing their loved ones hours after the plane had vanished. The phones kept ringing but the passengers didn’t answer.

So if it is possible that the plane was taken to Diego Garcia, why? Surely, the first thing to look at is the passenger list.

On board were 20 employees from the same company - Freescale Semiconductor, a Texas-based technology firm. Freescale develops microprocessors, sensors, and other technology related to the automotive, consumer, industrial, and networking markets. The employees were engineers and other manufacturing specialists from China and Malaysia.

It has been suggested that these employees may have had knowledge of sensitive technology or intellectual property that could have been of interest to certain parties, potentially making the flight a target. Some variations of the theory suggest that these employees had knowledge related to electronic warfare, cloaking technology, or advanced semiconductor technology, and that the plane was hijacked or brought down to gain control over this knowledge.

Another theory is that the employees shared co-ownership over a critical patent and that their deaths served to consolidate ownership of this patent. However, this theory doesn’t add up to me.

Mechanical engineer, Paul Weeks was another passenger with a story that doesn’t sound quite right. As he was leaving to catch his flight, he turned to his wife and gave her his wedding ring and watch. “If something should happen to me then the wedding ring should go to the first son that gets married and then the watch to the second", he said.

Let’s speculate that the flight never crashed and was flown to Diego Garcia. But what do you do with a jumbo jet? How do you hide the evidence? Well one way would be to blow it up.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17)

131 days later, on 17 July 2014, Flight MH17 took off from Amsterdam, heading for Kuala Lumpur. While flying over Eastern Ukraine, the aircraft was shot down. All 283 passengers and 15 crew members on board were killed.

According to the official investigation conducted by the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) and the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), which included representatives from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands, and Ukraine, it was concluded that the plane was shot down by a Buk surface-to-air missile launched from pro-Russian separatist-controlled territory in Ukraine.

This is strange because it's highly unusual for a commercial airliner to be shot down. Furthermore, the aircraft was cruising at an altitude above the range of most surface-to-air weapons when it was hit by a missile.

So could Flight MH17 have actually been Flight MH370 in disguise? Both aircraft were Boeing 777-200ER, long-range, wide-body, twin-engine jets.

Every commercial aircraft has a unique identification number known as its registration number. This number is often painted on the aircraft's exterior and is recorded in a variety of logs and databases related to the plane's manufacture, sale, maintenance, and flight history.

Flight MH370 had the registration numbers ‘9M-MRO’ and MH17 had ‘9M-MRD’. This looks like an easy swap but according to the official investigation, wreckage found at the crash site in Ukraine, included the aircraft’s correct unique identification marks.

So once again we can speculate that MH370 and MH17 were the same aircraft, and that the latter was actually the former, repainted and blown up to get rid of evidence related to MH370.

Is there any other evidence to support this theory? Some proponents of the theory have pointed to photos of the wreckage showing what they perceive to be signs of age or wear, such as apparent rust or corrosion.

Additionally, there have been claims of discrepancies in the window layout of the crashed plane compared to the original MH17. In a photo taken on the day of the crash, the aircraft appears to have one window next to the second right-side door, while some earlier photos of the same plane appear to show two windows next to this door.

And once again we should look at the passenger list. If you are getting rid of evidence, you may as well kill two birds with one stone.

Out of the 283 passengers on board the plane, up to 100 of them were Aids researchers on their way to Aids 2014 conference. Many of them were the world’ leading HIV/Aids researchers and advocates.

Prof. Richard Boyd, director of the Monash Immunology and Stem Cell Laboratories, told Guardian Australia he was "gutted" by the losses.

"There were some serious HIV leaders on that plane," he said. "This will have ramifications globally because whenever you lose a leader in any field, it has an impact. That knowledge is irreplaceable.”

Trevor Stratton, an HIV/Aids consultant, told the ABC:

“The cure for AIDS may have been on that plane, we just don’t know. You can’t just help but wonder about the kind of expertise on that plane.”

One of the most notable among them was Joep Lange, a prominent Dutch AIDS researcher and former president of the International AIDS Society. Lange had been involved in HIV treatment and research since the earliest days of the epidemic and was a pioneering advocate for access to affordable AIDS drugs in developing countries.

RIP to all those involved. And to any friends or family members who may read this, there is no disrespect intended here, only truth searching.

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Since publishing this article last year, the video below has come to light. It has been debunked, validated and then debunked over and over again. A whole post is required just for this video. Not necessarily because it is real but because the technology involved in the filming of the plane shows that it is impossible for the military to not know where flight MH370 went.