As for what actually happened to flight MH370, we still don t know. The southern Indian Ocean is one

Updated @ 10:24 March 24: The Malaysian prime minister, speaking at a press conference minutes ago, says that British investigators have concluded that Malaysia courtesy car rental chicago Airlines MH370 did indeed courtesy car rental chicago take the southern flight corridor over the Indian Ocean. This conclusion appears to be based on the same Inmarsat data from last week. According to this new data, flight MH370 ended in the Indian Ocean, courtesy car rental chicago prime minister Najib Razak said. Following this confirmation, Malaysia Airlines sent a text message to relatives, saying that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board survived.
As for what actually happened to flight MH370, we still don t know. The southern Indian Ocean is one of the most remote parts of the world, making it an incredibly hard location courtesy car rental chicago to search. It is entirely possible courtesy car rental chicago that we will never find the flight data recorder (black courtesy car rental chicago box), and thus never find out what actually happened courtesy car rental chicago on board.
Updated @ 12:50 March 21: Bad news so far, despite five aircraft being dispatched by Australia and the US, no debris of flight MH370 has been found. This is likely because courtesy car rental chicago the debris, which was spotted in satellite imagery from March 16, has since drifted a significant distance (hundreds of miles). So far the planes have been using radar to look for the debris, covering large swaths of ocean from a high altitude, but now the search will be visual which involves the planes flying very low, and covering much less ground (and thus more aircraft are needed). Other nations are sending aircraft and ships to aid with the search.
courtesy car rental chicago In other news, upon further investigation of MH370 s cargo manifest, it appears that the plane was carrying a shipment of lithium-ion batteries. In theory, LIBs are flammable though there s really no reason to believe courtesy car rental chicago that these caused the disaster. Most authorities and investigators still believe that the plane was intentionally hijacked or sabotaged.
Updated courtesy car rental chicago @ 07:10 March 20: There has possibly been a breakthrough in the search for flight MH370. Australian authorities say they ve found what appears to be the debris of the plane in some satellite imagery courtesy car rental chicago (pictured below). courtesy car rental chicago The debris is located about 1,500 miles (2,500km) from Perth in the Indian Ocean, off the south-west corner of Australia, along the same arc provided by the Inmarsat pings (see previous update below). Unfortunately, courtesy car rental chicago though, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) sent an airplane to investigate the area and could not locate any debris. RAAF P3 crew unable to locate debris. Cloud rain limited visbility. Further aircraft to continue search for #MH370, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority courtesy car rental chicago said in a tweet . Malaysian authorities haven t said much on the matter, courtesy car rental chicago only that this is the only credible lead that we have, so of course it will be investigated fully.
Possible location of MH370 debris, off the coast of Perth [Image credit: Sydney Morning Herald] Updated @ 14:42 March 18: 11 days in, and we still have no idea what fate befell Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, or the 239 souls on board. courtesy car rental chicago We now know that the plane s Satcom link continued to ping an Inmarsat communications satellite (geosynchronously orbiting above the Indian ocean) for seven hours after last civilian courtesy car rental chicago air traffic control contact, until 8:11am local time. If the plane did continue flying for seven hours, it would probably have ended up in China s Taklamakan desert on the Kyrgyzstan border. This is a fairly appealing theory, as there would be plenty of space up there to land a plane without anyone noticing. The main problem with the continued flight theory though even if the plane went south into the Indian Ocean instead is that it would ve had to cross the airspace of multiple courtesy car rental chicago countries without courtesy car rental chicago being spotted by military radar. If this really is the case if the plane continued to fly on for seven hours it s really starting to sound like the disappearance courtesy car rental chicago of flight MH370 was an incredibly sophisticated hijack, or the actions of a government-level conspiracy.
Updated @ 19:20 March 16: Somewhat unbelievably, more than a week after Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 disappeared, we still have absolutely no idea where the plane is. We are, however, starting to work out what happened. Basically, the Malaysian military have now admitted that they were tracking an unidentified contact across the country, and did nothing about it. It has now been confirmed that the unidentified contact was flight MH370. It seems, shortly after it completed its climb out of Kuala Lumpur airport, courtesy car rental chicago that the plane s ACARS tracking system courtesy car rental chicago was manually disabled by someone on the Boeing courtesy car rental chicago 777 presumably one of the pilots. (Disabling the system would be impossible to do without both pilots knowing, however.) Malaysian military radar tracked the plane to the Strait of Malacca at 2:15am courtesy car rental chicago local time, and then the plane vanished. It has also emerged that the plane continued to send data to an Inmarsat satellite for five hours after last contact. 25 countries are now searching for the plane, courtesy car rental chicago across a huge swath of Asia (pictured below). courtesy car rental chicago At this point, hijacking is by far the most likely cause of this utterly insane scenario.
Flight MH370, possible routes, if it carried on flying for a further five hours. [Image credit: BBC] Updated @ 08:05 March 14: It s now been almost a week since flight MH370 disappeared without trace. From official Malaysian sources, there is still no news to report. According to an exclusive report by Reuters, however, some investigators are now fairly certain courtesy car rental chicago that the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 did in fact fly on for another courtesy car rental chicago four hours. Apparently, shortly after the last time it appeared courtesy car rental chicago on civilian radar (around 1:30am local time), MH370 turned courtesy car rental chicago west and started following navigational waypoints (Vampi, Gival, Igrex) usually used by flights courtesy car rental chicago towards the Middle East and Europe. According to two sources speaking to Reuters, the fact that the airplane simply courtesy car rental chicago vanished from air traffic courtesy car rental chicago control and civilian radar would suggest that someone on board the plane disabled its communication systems. If this new information is correct, MH370 actually disappeared somewhere in the Indian Ocean, near the Andaman Islands. Reuters says Malaysian authorities are now asking for radar data from Thailand, Indonesia, and India all of which may have picked up flight MH370 after it vanished.
Malaysian Airlines MH370 s flight path after it vanished, according to the Reuters report. [Image credit: Daily Mail] Updated @ 09:40 March 13: The farcical hunt for Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 continues. US investigators believe the plane may have continued for four further hours after its last sighting a claim that Malaysian authorities have strongly denied. Malaysian courtesy car rental chicago authorities say they have spoken to both Boeing and Rolls-Royce, and they both confirmed that the plane s last ACARS transmission was at 1:07am, and at that time the plane was completely healthy. The radar blips at 2:15am (near the Strait of Malacca) and again at 2:30am, after being confirmed and then denied, are being investigated yet again. China released courtesy car rental chicago satellite images of the purported wreck of MH370 (below), but Malaysia s transport minister said they were released by mistake and  did not show any debris from MH370.  Read on for previous updates and the original story.
Updated @ 14:10 March 12: As darkness falls over south-east Asia, the fifth day of the MH370 search-and-rescue mission draws to a close. There s still absolutely no indication of what happened to flight MH370, nor where it landed. The Malaysian authorities continue to flail embarrassingly. Crazy theories continue to be proposed. The search-and-rescue efforts now comprise of 42 ships and 39 aircraft from 12 different countries. DigitalGlobe is providing high-res satellite courtesy car rental chicago imagery of the search area, with analysis of the imagery then being crowdsourced by Tomnod and apparently there s now a third possible location where the plane might ve disappeared. So far, though, all of these efforts have turned up absolutely nothing.
Updated @ 08:25 March 12: This morning, as the search for flight MH370 heads into its fifth day, Malaysian authorities held a press conference in Kuala Lumpur to discuss the latest developments. Sadly, there wasn t really much to report. courtesy car rental chicago The Malaysian military are now denying that MH370 was tracked to the Strait of Malacca. The search area now covers 27,000 courtesy car rental chicago square nautical miles, 12,000+ in the Strait of Malacca and 14,000+ in the South China Sea (the plane s last known location). Rolls-Royce, which made the Boeing 777 s Trent 800 engines says it received two batches of engine diagnostic data from the plane after takeoff and during the cruise, as part of the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS)  but there s nothing unusual about that. It does imply, however, that Malaysian Airlines which received the full ACARS report would know by now if the plane was suffering from any issues. As the airline hasn t said anything about the ACARS report, it s probably fairly safe to assume that all systems were functioning normally.
Updated @ 16:35 March 11:  The fourth day of the MH370 search-and-rescue mission has come to a close, and we re still no closer to finding the missing plane. courtesy car rental chicago The search area has been expanded courtesy car rental chicago from 50 nautical miles (57 miles; 93km) to 100 nautical miles. It has also come to light that MH370 s co-pilot, Fariq Abdul Hamid, was extremely unprofessional during a flight in 2011. On a flight from Phuket to Kuala Lumpur, Hamid invited two South African teenagers into the cockpit, where they remained for the entirety of the flight, while he and the pilot smoked cigarettes while flying the plane. Whether this new finding has any bearing on the fate of MH370, we ll have to wait and see.
Updated @ 08:40 March 11: As the Malaysia Airlines MH370 search-and-rescue mission enters its fourth day, we still know almost nothing about the fate of the plane and the 239 people on board. Two passengers