The Truth About Malaysian Flight 370 Is Scarier Than The Conspiracy Theories

The Malaysian government has announced that the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 will resume in the remote southern Indian Ocean.

The new effort is being carried out by the U.S.-based company Ocean Infinity under a “no-find, no-fee” contract, meaning the company will only be paid if the aircraft is located. As expected, the renewed search has triggered a wave of commentary, speculation, and online content. Much of it leans into the flight’s reputation as “the greatest unsolved mystery in aviation history,” reviving familiar theories about hijackers, onboard fires, foreign plots, and even military involvement.

Yet for many investigators and analysts who have closely studied the evidence collected over the past decade, the sequence of events surrounding MH370 is far less mysterious than popular narratives suggest. The evidence accumulated through radar data, satellite communications, forensic analysis, and recovered debris points strongly toward a single conclusion: Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah deliberately diverted the aircraft, incapacitated those on board, and flew the Boeing 777 into the southern Indian Ocean.

The Flight Simulator Clues

In the weeks before the disappearance, Shah used his home flight simulator in Kuala Lumpur to run a series of routes that stood out from normal practice. One of those routes began in Kuala Lumpur, proceeded northwest up the Strait of Malacca, then turned south into the remote southern Indian Ocean, ending where the aircraft would run out of fuel.

This simulated path closely mirrored the route MH370 later took, as reconstructed from radar returns and satellite data. The simulation ended in one of the most isolated regions of the ocean, thousands of miles from any viable diversion airport. Investigators have struggled to find an innocent explanation for why a pilot would rehearse such a route shortly before flying a real aircraft carrying 238 people along a remarkably similar path.

The Diversion

MH370 departed Kuala Lumpur at 12:41 a.m. on March 8, 2014, bound for Beijing. At 1:19 a.m., the final radio transmission from the cockpit was heard: “Good night Malaysian three seven zero.” Less than two minutes later, the aircraft’s transponder was switched off at the precise point where responsibility for air traffic control was transitioning between Malaysia and Vietnam, maximizing the delay before either side realized something was wrong.

The plane then turned back across the Malay Peninsula. At 1:52 a.m., it passed over Penang, Shah’s home city. The detour served no operational purpose. Afterward, the aircraft headed northwest along the Strait of Malacca, blending in with other traffic on a busy corridor before making a final turn south into the open Indian Ocean. It continued flying for roughly six more hours until the engines failed from fuel exhaustion and the aircraft descended into the sea.

Incapacitating the Cabin

Investigators believe the most likely method of neutralizing passengers and crew was cabin depressurization. At cruising altitude, useful consciousness without oxygen is measured in seconds. The emergency oxygen masks in the cabin provide limited supplemental oxygen—enough for a normal emergency descent, but not for extended time at high altitude.

If the aircraft remained at cruising altitude, as data indicates, passengers and crew in the cabin would have lost consciousness quickly and died within minutes. The flight deck, however, is equipped with a separate, longer-lasting oxygen supply, allowing the person in control to remain conscious for hours.

As for the co-pilot, investigators have speculated that he may have been lured out of the cockpit under a pretext and locked out, a method later seen in the 2015 Germanwings disaster.

Why the Plan Was Not Perfect

Several factors prevented the disappearance from being complete.

First, forensic analysts were able to recover deleted data from Shah’s home flight simulator. Despite efforts to erase and reformat the drive, specialists reconstructed files showing that he had practiced a route similar to the one MH370 ultimately flew.

Second, although communication systems were manually disabled, the aircraft continued to exchange automated hourly “handshakes” with an Inmarsat satellite. These pings allowed investigators to determine the plane’s distance from the satellite over time, forming a series of arcs across the ocean. When the engines finally failed, a brief restart of onboard systems triggered one last transmission, narrowing the potential crash area to a more manageable region.

Third, the aircraft did not appear to attempt a controlled water landing. Instead, evidence suggests a high-speed impact that scattered debris. Pieces later washed ashore in locations including Mozambique, South Africa, and Madagascar. Ocean current modeling based on those finds helped investigators refine the likely crash zone.

A Persistent Narrative of Mystery

Despite the evidence, alternative theories continue to circulate widely, fueled by the human tendency to search for complex explanations. The idea that one individual could deliberately carry out such an act is deeply unsettling, and conspiracy narratives can feel easier to accept than that reality.

The renewed search may eventually locate the wreckage and provide physical confirmation of what investigators have long concluded. For many analysts, however, the essential story of MH370 is already understood.