The three major theories on what happened to missing flight MH370 after decade-long mystery

The decade-long mystery of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 remains one of the deadliest cases of aircraft disappearance.

227 passengers and 12 crew members on board the Boeing 777 were presumed dead after travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on 8 March, 2014.

MH370 lost contact with air traffic control at 1:19am, over the South China Sea, while investigators believe the plane deviated from its planned route and flew west for several hours before vanishing.

The new search for MH370

Southampton-based marine robotics firm, Ocean Infinity, is resuming its mission in a new area in the southern Indian Ocean.

If the company - who ended a previous search in 2018 - is able to locate significant wreckage, it will be awarded $70 million (£56 million), according to Malaysia's transport minister Anthony Loke.

"Our responsibility and obligation and commitment is to the next of kin," Loke said.

"We hope this time will be positive, that the wreckage will be found and give closure to the families."

MH370 theory 1: Hijacking

There are main three theories on what happened to the missing MH370 flight (Rob Griffith-Pool/Getty Images)

There are some suggestions that the incident was an 'act of war', as mentioned in Netflix's 2023 documentary MH370: The Plane That Disappeared.

Aviation journalist Jeff Wise noted that another incident involving a Malaysia Airlines Flight could have been the result of MH370 being hijacked.

MH17 was scheduled to fly from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on 17 July 2014, before it was shot down by Russian-backed forces.

All 283 passengers and 15 crew were killed, as a surface-to-air missile in Ukraine shot the plane.

In terms of MH370, however, Wise suspected that international spies were on board the flight and went into the electronics bay underneath the plane to operate the computers which control the plane's flight system.

MH370 theory 2: The pilot was involved

The wing flap found on Pemba Island, Tanzania, which has been identified a missing part of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 (Adli Ghazali/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

When taking a look into the pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah, Wise speculates that he purposely took down the plane.

Instead of heading to Beijing as planned, the journalist thinks Shah may have turned the aircraft around to head south so it would eventually run out of fuel and crash.

But following further evaluation, Wise was more convinced by theory number one above.

MH370 theory 3: Plane interception

Last, but not least, is the theory set out by French journalist Florence De Changy.

In the Netflix doc, she believed that it was NATO or US Air Force planes with AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System), who 'jammed' the plane's communication system.

This was because they, allegedly, picked up that there was suspicious cargo on board.

And in the third episode of the series, De Changy says that this led to the aircraft getting 'lost', which would have been the perfect opportunity for interception.

"More than anything, we want to pull the hidden truths about MH370 out from the carpet under which they've been swept, and remind people that this is still a story with no ending, a mystery that hasn't been solved, that somebody out there knows more than the world has been told," producer, Harry Hewland, said.

MH370: The Plane That Disappeared is available to watch on Netflix now.