On March 8, 2014, Malaysia flight MH370 was scheduled to depart from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at 12:45 am and arrive in Beijing, China, at 6.30 am. The 11-year-old Boeing 777 passenger jet, which was operated by a crew of 12 Malaysian citizens, had no previous incidents of mechanical issues. The pilot in command, 53-year-old Zaharie Ahmad Shah, had more than 18,000 hours of flight experience, while the co-pilot, 27-year-old Fariq Abdul Hamid, was a training pilot with 2,700 hours of flight experience. In addition to these two pilots and other crew members, there were 227 passengers on board.

At 12:42 am, the flight was cleared by air traffic control to fly to 18000 feet in altitude. Everything was normal at first, but at 1:06 am, the plane sent its final automated position report. Just 37 minutes after the plane had taken off, Kuala Lumpur made the last call to the flight for them to switch to the Vietnam airspace. The plane was now flying over the Gulf of Thailand when it suddenly vanished from the radar of Kuala Lumpur and Ho Chi Minh city.

The plane suddenly took a right turn, followed by a left turn in a southwestern direction. It flew directly over the Malay Peninsula. The last known location was above the Indian Ocean. Over an hour late for its scheduled arrival in Beijing, the Malaysian government announced that they had lost contact with the plane and mobilized the search and rescue operation. To date, only debris from the aircraft has been recovered. The disappearance of the plane mid-flight and lack of any conclusive evidence is aviation’s greatest unsolved mystery.