Let’s take a moment to appreciate that Netflix is showcasing some worthwhile documentary programs about some of the most discussed mysteries regarding murder, scandals, unexplained incidents, and more. These documentaries are compelling and expertly depict the horror of reality, true accounts of investigations, and the real emotions of the traumatized families, making them much more horrifying than fiction. The sudden disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which was the most talked-about incident of 2014, is now the focus of a Netflix docuseries.
Flight MH370 abruptly vanished on March 8, 2014, setting off a global outcry and becoming one of the most perplexing accidents in aviation history. Netflix has thrown light on actual reports of extensive research that left us perplexed as to how an airplane might simply vanish from radar and why it became practically impossible to locate the plane. In response to the events, various conspiracy theories have been created; some of them have encouraged the investigating team to explore deeper into the mystery, while others have disturbed the peace of many people’s lives. Yet, ultimately, there is still the question of whether MH370 will ever be discovered. Is it possible that the public will ever hear the truth about this tragic yet terrible incident? Let’s set off on the journey to find the truth.
Episode 1 opens with the tragic night at Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur airport. The flight was scheduled to depart Kuala Lumpur for Beijing at daybreak. 12 cabin crew members and 227 passengers boarded the aircraft. Mohd. Hazrin, a member of the cabin crew who was on board the flight but never arrived home, was remembered by his wife, Intan Othman, as she grieved for her husband and recalled their happiest times together. Danica Weeks, the wife of Paul Weeks, who was a passenger on Flight MH370, lamented the loss of her husband. One of those grieving family members, Ghyslain Wattrelos, spoke about their intended trip to Beijing to celebrate the holiday with his family, but unfortunately, that never materialized. The flight departed 41 minutes after midnight and traveled over the South China Sea.
Captain Zaharie Ahmed Shah, the pilot, made contact with the air traffic controller as the aircraft flew over Malaysia. The final words of Zaharie Ahmed were, “Good night, Malaysian 370.” After MH370 crossed Malaysian borders, it lost electronic visibility on the radar 90 seconds later. Mr. Fuad Sharuji, the Malaysia Airlines crisis director, and his staff made numerous attempts to find and contact the plane but got no response. They believed the plane might have made a landing in China or close to Hong Kong before it reached Beijing, but that was not the case. After five hours had passed since the last contact, the media was notified that aircraft 370 had vanished from the radar. CNN and other media outlets contacted Malaysia Airlines about the situation.
In response to media inquiries, Sharuji stated that the fuel would only have been operational for seven hours, making it possible to estimate that the flight would run out of fuel sometime around 8:30 in the morning. The mission to locate and rescue people had started early in the morning, according to Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, the chief of civil aviation. A huge uproar arose on social media, where multiple posts and comments drove the rescue and investigation teams to delve deeper into the investigation. The multiple places were independently investigated by aviation journalist Jeff Wise, who received assistance from other aviation experts with various pieces of information. Cyndi Hendri, a volunteer with the Tomnod, discovered what she thought to be the wreckage of MH370 in the South China Sea. However, later, the prime minister, Najib Razak, announced in a press conference that they were ending the search in the South China Sea because they had discovered from the satellite interactions that the flight might have entered two possible corridors. First, it’s plausible that the aircraft returned to Malaysian airspace before flying through the military boundary and landing close to Kazakhstan in central Asia or that it flew directly towards the remote Indian Ocean. Hence, the Prime Minister said that there was little chance anyone would have survived if MH370 had flown directly to the southern portion of the Indian Ocean and dove into the water. It was a little confusing how the government could determine whether the passengers were deceased just based on calculations.
The grieving family members felt that the government wasn’t moving far enough to investigate this, which caused a major uproar among the family members, who then started rioting to demand a comprehensive inquiry. But why did the pilot feel the need to divert the plane back to Malaysia? Was the mass murder of the 239 passengers on the jet really an accident, or was it done on purpose? Captain Zaharie Ahmed, the chief pilot, was suspected since it was discovered that he had previously practiced this off-route in a simulator. The pilot-related conspiracy theory starts here. According to Jeff Wise, if Zaharie had taken the plane, the entire scenario might have gone like this: Zaharie might have requested his co-pilot to get something for him, and while the co-pilot was out, Zaharie might have locked the chamber from inside. Zaharie may have disconnected every electronic link that rendered the plane invisible to radar. After that, the entire situation would be in Zaharie’s hands. The co-pilot may have discovered the room was locked from the inside, so Zaharie would activate the oxygen masks and don his mask, which was more durable than the masks worn by the passengers.
After fifteen minutes, when all of the passengers had died from a lack of oxygen, Zaharie could carefully dive the jet into the water and may be held accountable for the deaths of 239 passengers. But something about this entire scheme looked very odd to Jeff, who claimed that there had never been a case in which an experienced pilot had waited 6 hours to perform a mass murder-suicide in flight. Four months later, Jeff looked into an incident involving Malaysian Flight MH17, which departed from an airport in Amsterdam and was shot down during its flight over Ukraine near the Russian border. Jeff then realized that he may have been wrong to accuse Zaharie; perhaps it wasn’t Zaharie at all, but rather an act of war that was blatantly obvious given that two Malaysian aircraft had been taken down in a short period of time. Many conspiracy theories regarding the issue of war have evolved in light of the events that have been occurring in the same timeline, and we may see them extensively in the upcoming episodes.
