Series Review: "MH370: The Plane That Disappeared" (2023).

"The truth doesn't just vanish." This is MH370: The Plane That Disappeared. This British docuseries directed by Louise Malkinson. On March 8th, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared from radar. When the two-hundred and thirty-nine people on board went missing, a global investigation into the greatest mystery of the modern age ensued. Despite official reports, countless theories, and tireless searches for evidence, one central question remained - What Are We Missing?

On March 8th, 2014, international passenger flight operated by Malaysia Airlines, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, disappeared while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia to its planned destination, Beijing Capital International Airport. The crew of the Boeing 777-200ER registered as 9M-MRO, last communicated with air traffic control (ATC) around thirty-eight minutes after takeoff when the flight was over the South China Sea. The aircraft was lost from ATC radar screens minutes later, but was tracked by military radar for another hour, deviating westward from its planned flight path, crossing the Malay Peninsula and Andaman Sea. It left radar range two-hundred nautical miles (three-hundred and seventy km; two-hundred and thirty mi) northwest of Penang Island in northwestern Peninsular Malaysia. With all two-hundred and twenty-seven passengers and twelve crew aboard presumed dead, the disappearance of Flight 370 was the deadliest incident involving a Boeing 777 and the deadliest in Malaysia Airlines' history until it was surpassed in both regards by Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down while flying over conflict-stricken eastern Ukraine four months later on 17 July 2014. The combined loss caused significant financial problems for Malaysia Airlines, which was renationalised by the Malaysian government in August 2014. The search for the missing airplane became the most expensive search in the history of aviation. It focused initially on the South China Sea and Andaman Sea, before analysis of the aircraft's automated communications with an Inmarsat satellite indicated a possible crash site somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean. The lack of official information in the days immediately after the disappearance prompted fierce criticism from the Chinese public, particularly from relatives of the passengers, as most people on board Flight 370 were of Chinese origin. Several pieces of debris washed ashore in the western Indian Ocean during 2015 and 2016; many of these were confirmed to have originated from Flight 370. After a three-year search across one-hundred and twenty-thousand km2 (forty-six-thousand sq mi) of ocean failed to locate the aircraft, the Joint Agency Coordination Centre heading the operation suspended its activities in January 2017. A second search launched in January 2018 by private contractor Ocean Infinity also ended without success after six months.

This three-part examination of the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 is irresistible, though the continuing anguish of friends and relatives of the two-hundred and thirty-nine people aboard the flight makes for some painful viewing. The investigative journalism proves fascinating, and the series captures the relentless hunger the public has for answers when a disaster occurs.

Simon says MH370: The Plane That Disappeared receives: