On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was scheduled to fly to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
The plane, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, made its last voice contact with air traffic control at 01:19 MYT. It was flying over the South China Sea, just less than an hour after take off, when it disappeared off air traffic control's radar screens at 01:22 MYT. Everyone on board was killed.
Two-and-a-half years later and still little is known about what caused the incident, even though an investigation has been 'ongoing' since. Some believe this is because no party wishes to accept accountability, or face the grieving families that have been looking for answers since the day their loved ones went missing.
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Image credit: PA
However, in a new book, The Crash Detectives, written by Christine Negroni, substantial light has been shed on this scandal that could lead to further answers as to why the investigation is taking so long.
Negroni discloses the importance of the internal auditors at Malaysia Airlines. This disclosure has lead to one of the most fundamentally unanswered questions: Why was Flight MH370 not equipped to report its position and condition more frequently than at half-hour intervals?
One year prior to the aircraft disappearing, company auditors revealed that the airline was not compliant with its own rules for the frequency of essential information sent on a regular basis via satellite from its fleet of long-haul aircrafts to the airline's HQ in Kuala Lumpur. Harrowingly, the auditors pointed out that becasue of the lapse, the aeroplanes - including Flight HH370 - should not have legally been cleared to be in service.
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The outcome of this disobedience to the rules has made the investigation following the crash that much more challenging because authorities are unable to pinpoint where flight MH370 made impact into the sea.
The search for the missing airliner is ongoing. Image credit: PA
Until the body of the plane, which holds the all-important flight data recorders, is found, speculation will continue to rise, together with sensational conspiracy theories. Meanwhile, our thoughts continue to go out to the families who are left without an answer to the whereabouts of their loved ones when they died.
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Featured image credit: PA
Featured Image Credit:Topics: Plane, plane crash