Netflix's MH370: The Plane That Disappeared retraces 'greatest aviation mystery'

Three-part documentary made its debut on the ninth anniversary of the Malaysia Airlines tragedy

A still from new Netflix documentary series MH370: The Plane that disappeared. Photo: Netflix

Nine years after Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished 40 minutes into its flight, a new Netflix documentary is attempting to piece together the seemingly impossible mystery and offer up some answers.

Released on Wednesday, on the ninth anniversary of the tragedy, MH370: The Plane That Disappeared is a three-part series by director Louise Malkinson that traces the timeline of events leading to the plane's disappearance, the global obsession and conspiracy theories that followed and the devastation the families of those on board continue to suffer to this day.

Through three episodes - The Pilot, The Hijack and The Intercept - it also offers fresh questions and features extensive interviews with aviation experts and journalists who have been following MH370 since its disappearance.

“It’s the greatest aviation mystery of all time,” Malkinson told The Guardian. “This is a world where we have mobile phones and radar and satellites and tracking, and so to be nearly nine years down the line… and still have so little is extraordinary.”

What happened to MH370?

On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport 41 minutes past midnight, bound for Beijing. On board the Boeing 777 jet were 12 crew and 227 passengers, a majority of them Chinese nationals, but also 38 Malaysians, as well as citizens of Indonesia, Australia, India, France, US, Iran, Ukraine, Canada, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Russia and Taiwan.

Nearly 40 minutes into the flight, shortly after checking out from Malaysian airspace, the pilot-in-command Zaharie Ahmad Shah failed to check in with Vietnamese controllers after it crossed into the country's airspace. MH370 then disappeared from radar and all subsequent attempts to contact it were unsuccessful.

What followed was shock, confusion and devastation as panicked relatives desperately tried to reach those on board. As the news made global headlines, wild conspiracy theories begin to float as the search spread to weeks, then months and years.

“There are still a lot of questions that haven’t been answered,” director Malkinson says. “I know that some of the theories are more far-fetched than the others, but I think what’s the most important thing for me is that the next of kin still don’t have all the answers, and that actually this mystery hasn’t been solved.”

What's happened to the search for MH370?

The search for MH370 is now the most expensive in the history of aviation. In 2017, teams from Malaysia, China and Australia ended a fruitless two-year $135 million underwater hunt after finding no trace of the plane. In 2018, Malaysia engaged Ocean Infinity, a US seabed exploration, to search for the aircraft in the southern Indian Ocean, offering to pay up to $70 million if it found the plane. But its operation came up short.

On Wednesday, on the ninth anniversary of the flight's disappearance, families of those on board called on the Malaysian government to mount a new search for the missing plane.

Voice370, a grouping of relatives of those aboard the plane, said Ocean Infinity hoped to embark on a new search as early as this summer and urged the Malaysian government to accept any proposals from the firm on a conditional fee basis, such that the firm would only be paid if successful.

"Ocean Infinity, over the last 12 months, have made real progress working with many people to further understand ... the events in 2014," Voice370 said. "Ultimately, this has greatly improved their chances of conducting a successful search."

In a message to families read out at a memorial event, Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke vowed not to "close the book" on MH370. Due consideration would be given to future searches if there was "new and credible information" on the aircraft's potential location, he added.

Debris confirmed or believed to be from the MH370 aircraft has washed up along the African coast and on islands in the Indian Ocean.

Malaysian investigators previously drew no conclusion about what happened aboard the flight, but did not rule out the possibility that the aircraft had been deliberately taken off course.

— inputs by Reuters