Flight MH370 missing

After taking off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at 12:41 a.m. on March 8, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 — with 239 passengers and crew on board — headed for Beijing, China, due to land at 6:30 a.m. However, a little after 1:00 it disappeared, sparking an international search operation that remained ongoing at press time.

Sometime after its final message to Malaysian ground control, the plane’s transponder was turned off and the plane turned west, according to the Malaysian military, whose radar tracked it across the Strait of Malacca. A plane’s transponder relays information to ground control about the craft’s location, altitude, speed and trajectory. Authorities say it must have been turned off deliberately.

Inspections of various debris fields spotted by satellite have turned up no remnants of the plane or its contents. On March 24, the Malaysian prime minister announced that evidence showed the plane must have gone down in the Indian Ocean, with total loss of life.