MH370 vanished on March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board – 227 passengers and 12 flight crew. It had lost contact with air traffic control many hours before, but the authorities did not know where the plane had gone. It got to 6:40am in Beijing and the plane should have landed.
Relatives and friends gathered to meet the arrivals, but the display board read that it had been delayed, according to Channel 5 documentary ‘Flight MH370’.
Then, they got some very bad news: the plane had gone missing and no one knew where it was.
An hour after the plane was due to arrive, Malaysia Airlines issued a media statement that the communication with the flight had been lost by Malaysian air traffic control and that search-and-rescue operations were under way.
Back in Malaysia, loved ones of those on board began to hear about the missing plane.
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Friends and family began to gather in Kuala Lumpur airport to try and find out any information.
Former Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said in a press conference: “We would like to confirm that this flight MH370 lost contact with air traffic control.”
The next day, Malaysia Airlines spokesman Ignatius Ong Ming Choy said: “We do not have any findings at this point.
“The search and rescue team has been searching since this morning.
“Everyone has put in the effort and yet we have not found any wreckage. No wreckage whatsoever.”
All subsequent searches would also prove to be futile, as no floating debris was ever found.
However, three pieces of debris were found washed up on beaches to the west of the southern Indian Ocean – on Reunion Island, Mauritius and Tanzania.
Families of those on board MH370 have claimed they have been told very little about what was being discovered in the investigation and were treated poorly by the authorities.
One family member at the time tearfully told the press: “Nobody has told us anything. Nobody talks to us except volunteers and hotel staff.”
One woman, whose brother was on the flight, said her family found out that “everyone was dead” by text.
She added: “We have had a lot of stick from people saying we should be over it.
“But I’m not entirely convinced that if it was their loved one on the plane that they would be over it.”