All language subtitles for historys.greatest.mysteries.s03e07.1080p.web.h264-spamneggs_track4_[eng]

- Malaysia 370, contact
Ho Chi Minh 120.9. Good night.

[suspenseful music]

Fishburne:
Tonight, one of the most

chilling aviation mysteries
in modern day.

239 people vanish
over the Indian Ocean...

♪ ♪

Without a trace.

- With not enough oxygen
feeding the brain,

people can't do
the simplest things,

let alone something
as complicated

as piloting
a commercial aircraft.

Fishburne: Now we'll
uncover the top theories

surrounding the world's
most infamous missing aircraft.

- The officials
and most of the media

convinced themselves
that the satellite data

could only mean one thing,
that the plane went south.

But they were wrong.

- Was it potentially
a murder-suicide?

There's 227 passengers
up there.

Any of them
could be responsible.

Fishburne: Can new clues
bring us closer to answers?

- If the plane isn't
flying itself,

was it something
more sinister?

Because planes don't
just disappear.

Fishburne: What really happened
to Malaysia Flight 370?

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

[suspenseful music]

March 8, 2014, Kuala Lumpur
International Airport.

Malaysia Flight 370 sits
on the runway

awaiting clearance
for takeoff.

- The cabin has been secured,

tray tables and seat backs

are in their upright
and locked position.

And the flight attendants
are ready

for what they hope will
be a routine flight.

On board, we have 239 people,

227 passengers.

We have 12 crew members.

The 12 crew members
are all Malaysian citizens.

And up front,
we have Captain Shah.

They're headed to Beijing
International Airport.

It's a routine flight.
They make it twice a day.

March 8th is no exception.

[dramatic music]

- This flight was a flight

that Zaharie Shah,
the captain of the flight,

was quite familiar with.

- Normally, the flight
takes about six hours,

flying over a handful
of countries

and international waters.

Fishburne: At 12:40 a.m.,

MH370 is cleared for takeoff.

♪ ♪

[indistinct radio chatter]

♪ ♪

- Recordings of the radio
chatter back and forth

between the aircraft
and the tower shows

that everything is routine,

mundane even.

Fishburne: At 1:06,

the plane's computer sends
an automated position report.

- The transponders are
continuously communicating

with air traffic control,

relaying information
about the flight status.

These messages show up on
what's called secondary radar.

- At this point,
Malaysia 370 is flying

on course and has 96,000 pounds
of fuel remaining.

That's enough fuel for another
six to seven hours of flight.

♪ ♪

Fishburne:
A few minutes later, at 1:19,

Captain Shah radios
air traffic control

as he transitions
from Malaysian

to Vietnamese airspace.

- Air traffic control
in Kuala Lumpur radios MH370

and says, "Contact Ho Chi Minh
on 120.9. Good night."

That means it's time for MH370

to call
the Vietnamese controllers

on the frequency given.

- Captain Zaharie then says,
"Good night, Malaysia 370."

So everything seems fine.

The next thing
that should happen

is that air traffic controllers
in Ho Chi Minh City

should hear from Malaysia 370.

Fishburne:
But that's not what happens.

- The Vietnamese air traffic
controller at Ho Chi Minh

never hear from that flight
at the scheduled time.

And all of a sudden,
the flight transponders

aren't responding at all,
and they disappear

from the air traffic
controller screen.

Fishburne: Just 38 minutes
into the flight,

Malaysia 370 simply disappears
from radar.

- It's really inexplicable
that this aircraft,

which had been flying
and transmitting

the secondary data all along,

would at this point
of transition just disappear.

The transponder was turned off,

and the power was in some way
stopped to the transponder.

We don't know why it happened.

- In modern aviation,
air traffic controllers know

exactly where their airplanes
are through secondary radars

and precisely
scheduled communications.

- So this is something
that doesn't happen.

Planes don't just vanish.

Fishburne:
Alarm bells immediately ring,

and Vietnamese air controllers
desperately attempt

to contact the aircraft.

- It's just not the case
that an airliner

would be flying
through some nation's airspace

without the controllers
knowing who it is,

where it is,
and why it's there.

That's the way it works.

Doesn't happen otherwise.

- They tried
to contact the cockpit

through the satellite phone
several times,

but there was no answer.

Then it was clear to them
that the aircraft

crashed into the sea.

[intense music]

♪ ♪

- How could this happen
so suddenly?

Why was there no warning
from the pilot?

No Mayday, nothing.

This kicks off what will
eventually become

the most expensive search
in aviation history.

Everyone,
dozens of governments,

hundreds of families,

all want to know
what happened to MH370.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: By 5:30 a.m.,

a massive search and rescue
mission is underway.

- They gathered 26 countries
to help with the search

by sending 50 ships

and about 60 aircraft.

They're looking
for anything on the water,

wreckage, oil slick.

The search starts naturally

where the last transmission
from the aircraft occurred,

and last radar trace
was found.

It was right on the border
between the Gulf of Thailand

and South China Sea.

- So they do find
some oil slick.

They test it to see
if it's aviation fuel,

but it's not.

- They look
at satellite imagery,

they see what they think
is debris,

but they physically
go out there,

and there's nothing there.

- If the aircraft had crashed
in that area initially,

there'd be debris
and oil slick and plastic

and stuff
all over the China Sea.

Makes no sense that there's no
sign of this airplane anywhere.

Fishburne:
After two days of searching,

investigators turn
to military radar records.

♪ ♪

- Radar on military bases
are constantly tracking

to see if there's
anything in range.

Malaysia Flight 370 would
have been in radar range

for bases in Thailand,
Malaysia, and Vietnam,

so their radar records
track the plane as well.

And they do it
slightly differently.

Fishburne: Civilians rely
on secondary radar,

which requires a signal from
the airplane's transponder.

- And that's
what they've been using

to search for MH370 so far.

But the military uses
what's called primary radar.

Primary radar doesn't
require a special signal

from an airplane.

It sends out radio waves

where it bounces
off any objects

that might be in the sky,

and it reflects
that radio signal back.

- It's kind of
like echolocation,

like a bat would use,
but on a large scale.

A Boeing 777
has two transponders,

specifically
in case one fails,

the other one
is still gonna be fine.

So when MH370 vanishes
from all the radar,

that means both transponders
are dead at the same time.

- After the transponder
is turned off,

the secondary radar can't
see the airplane anymore.

But guess what,
the primary radar can still

see the airplane
and continues to track it.

It shows the airplane
keeps flying.

- Not only
does it keep flying,

it makes drastic
course changes

just as it's supposed to cross
into Vietnamese airspace.

♪ ♪

So MH370 turns a little bit
to the east,

then kind of loops back around.

It's almost like
it's turning back--

back towards Malaysia.

Then MH370 approaches
the Isle of Penang

and flies near
the Strait of Malacca.

Fishburne:
Military radar tracks MH370

for another 230 miles
into the Andaman Sea

until the aircraft finally
goes out of range.

- So in other words,

they're looking
in the wrong place.

The searchers move their
search to the Andaman Sea.

But once again,
there's nothing there.

So the investigators
are closer,

but they're clearly
not close enough.

♪ ♪

Keep in mind, military
radar doesn't pinpoint

where this airplane
stops flying.

As far as we know,
it's still in the air

all the way
until it goes out of range.

- After that,
it could have gone

in a lot
of different directions.

Fishburne: The radar records
raise an important question,

why does the plane fly
off course?

[indistinct radio chatter]

Fishburne: Before
Malaysia Flight 370 vanishes

on March 8, 2014,
investigators are shocked

to learn that the plane
deviated from its route.

- The MH370 planned flight path
would have had it flying

over the South China Sea
towards Beijing.

But the radar tracking shows
it made a series of turns

going towards the west.

And it just keeps flying until
it goes out of radar range.

[dramatic music]

- Once investigators realized
the airplane kept flying,

every possible theory
was out there.

Was it a bomb?
Was it terrorism?

Was it a crime?

Was it something more sinister?

Because planes don't
just disappear.

♪ ♪

The Internet went crazy,

and so did every
global government agency.

Fishburne: To some, there's
an obvious explanation.

- But right away, we know that
the aircraft continues flying

after the transponders
go offline.

The aircraft continues
on its path

and drops off
of military radar.

We know that
because it's recorded

on the military radar
until 2:22 a.m.

Take this radar information
and combine it with the fact

that the transponder
was cut off just prior

to the aircraft veering
off course.

Combine that with the fact

that there is no emergency
distress call made,

and it creates a truly
terrifying possibility.

- Was it potentially
a murder-suicide?

♪ ♪

Early in the investigation,

they thought they should
look very deep

into the two men
in the cockpit,

which is natural with this
type of investigation.

The question is,
would anything motivate

these two men
to bring that aircraft down?

- In the cockpit,
we have Captain Zaharie Shah

and First Officer
Fariq Abdul Hamid.

Fariq is not fully qualified
yet on the 777.

However, this is his last
flight to qualify on the 777.

This is a big deal,

the realization
of a lot of hard work.

He's been with the airline
for seven years.

He's 27 years old.

He's getting married soon.

He has a long career
in front of him.

And as a result of that,

the investigative bodies
rule him out pretty quickly.

They don't think he did it.

Fishburne: Leaving only one
other suspect in the cockpit.

♪ ♪

- People who subscribe
to the murder-suicide theory

believe that the captain,
Zaharie Shah,

deviated from the flight plan
and intentionally crashed

that airplane
into the Indian Ocean,

sadly taking everyone with him.

Fishburne: Investigators dig
deeper into Captain Shah.

And a search of his home
turns up a disturbing clue.

- Zaharie Shah had a very
sophisticated simulator,

a actual 777 simulator
in his house.

- When the investigative
bodies pull the data from it,

it shows a variety
of flight paths.

We see that they run out
over the Indian Ocean,

they just stop.

And ultimately,

this is the path
that MH370 takes.

It seems as though Captain Shah
had rehearsed this.

So the flight path
is somewhat telling in itself.

Captain Shah is from
the Island of Penang.

- The final maneuver recorded
by the military radar

was northwest of Penang,
very close to it.

It was a clear night,
perfect visibility.

And this turn gives him
a perfect view,

a final view of his home
in Penang.

♪ ♪

Some people believe
that when you finally decide

to commit suicide,

that person has a level
of serenity.

So some people believe
that this final turn

towards Penang was him

waving goodbye to his home.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: While all
of this evidence paints

a damning picture
for the pilot,

it is not enough
to close the case.

♪ ♪

- So officially, MH370 is not
ruled suicide by pilot,

because
there's no suicide note,

and they determined
it's impossible

to know what's in his mind.

Fishburne: If the plane
wasn't brought down

by the pilot or copilot,

could it be someone else
on the inside?

Investigators turn
their attention to the crew.

♪ ♪

- There's always
another possibility

that one of the cabin crew

was trained and familiar
with the aircraft

and how to get
into the cockpit.

So the investigators
looked into

every one
of these crew members.

170 interviews, looked
into their bank accounts,

social media accounts,
their love life,

everything that they could
possibly look into,

and they didn't find anything.

Fishburne: Ultimately, there
is no substantial evidence

to tie the pilot or crew
members to any wrongdoing.

- There's absolutely no proof

that this was a murder-suicide.

But authorities have
this nagging problem.

Why is there no distress call?

What could have happened?

Fishburne:
Months after disappearing,

the public is desperate
for investigators

to find Flight 370.

But with so little evidence,

they had their work
cut out for them.

[dramatic music]

- One of the most common things

that investigators can use

to determine the cause
of the crash is radio chatter.

♪ ♪

- 402's radar contact
at 18 miles.

[inaudible] speed 250.
Final bearing is 230.

- When there's something
unusual happening

on the airplane,
the flight crew usually

gets on the radio about it.

Whether there's an emergency,

they see something
out the window,

or there's a passenger
acting up,

they usually radio about it.

And in this case, there's
no radio distress calls.

We don't have that clue
to help us.

Fishburne: Unless the lack
of a distress call

is the clue.

- Based on what we know,

I think the most
logical explanation

is that the airplane
depressurized,

causing everyone
on board the aircraft

to become unconscious
and die from a lack of oxygen.

♪ ♪

The reason this airplane
is flying off course

and on an unusual path

is because the pilot
is not thinking clearly.

- This theory says
that a terrible accident

happened on board,
disabling the crew,

and probably the passengers
as well.

So the problem with MH370

could have actually started

before it left the ground.

Fishburne:
Just before takeoff,

maintenance logs show
that work was performed

on MH370's oxygen system.

- The pressurization system
in a 777 handles

all the air that everyone
breathes on board.

- And it also handles
the cabin pressure.

- At a high altitude,

the pressure outside
the aircraft is very low,

too low to sustain life.

Inside the aircraft,
it's pressurized,

and it's comfortable.

So it's possible
that a maintenance fault

could have resulted
from the work they did

on the pressurization system,

essentially causing
the aircraft

not to pressurize properly.

It's not terribly uncommon,

but if it does happen,

someone has
to pressurize the aircraft,

typically using
an emergency procedure.

Fishburne:
But what if they didn't?

♪ ♪

- The last communication
with air traffic control

was made by Captain Zaharie,

"Good night, Malaysia 370."

And that means that he was not
flying the aircraft.

On a commercial airliner,
there are two pilots,

one who is doing the flying,
and the other

who's doing the monitoring.

The pilot who is making
the radio calls

is not the pilot flying.

That's just the way it works.

Every radio call from the time

that Malaysia Flight 370
took off

was made by the first officer,
Fariq Abdul Hamid.

Captain Shah was handling
the takeoff,

getting out
of Kuala Lumpur Airspace,

sort of the more difficult
parts of the flight.

Captain Shah was a highly
experienced airline captain.

He had 18,000 flight hours,
and he was only 53 years old.

That's just 1,500 hours less
than Captain Sully Sullenberger

had when he famously landed his
airliner in the Hudson River.

After takeoff, we can assume

that 38 minutes
into the flight,

when Captain Shah's voice
is on the radio,

he has handed control of the
aircraft to the first officer.

Remember,
this was his last flight

before becoming qualified
on the aircraft.

- Now we have
the first officer,

who's operating the aircraft

for which he's not
yet fully qualified.

We have 227 passengers
on board,

12 crew members,
and the aircraft is climbing.

And we may have
a maintenance problem,

the pressurization issue.

This is a dangerous situation.

It can lead to hypoxia.

♪ ♪

Fishburne:
Hypoxia is a lack of oxygen

in the body tissue and brain,

which can occur
in any aircraft

flying over 16,000 feet.

- With not enough oxygen
feeding the brain,

people can't do
the simplest things,

let alone command an airliner.

To be blunt,
hypoxia makes you stupid,

makes you unable
to have rational thoughts.

At a cruising altitude
of 35,000 feet,

incapacitation due
to hypoxia can occur

in less than a minute.

The statistics indicate that,
for pilots,

the time of useful
consciousness could be

as low as 15 seconds.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: Gradual onset
hypoxia has caused

numerous airline crashes
over the years.

It's a deadly scenario

with very little time
to react.

- There are a number of cases
in which an airplane takes off,

and the pilots have failed
to pressurize the aircraft,

or the aircraft simply
doesn't pressurize.

[alarm beeping]

And because of the nature
of hypoxia, there are cases

in which pilots got
a cabin altitude warning horn,

a warning that the aircraft
was not properly pressurized,

and they may not respond
to it correctly

if their brains
are already lacking oxygen.

Fishburne: Could this have
happened aboard MH370?

- So at first it makes sense.

There is a lack
of a Mayday call.

There's no call for help.

But under hypoxic conditions,

they might not even think
they're in danger.

- The erratic flight also
speaks to a hypoxic event.

The pilot turned
the aircraft around,

heading back to Kuala Lumpur

as part of a response
to the emergency.

Fishburne: According to radar,

the plane makes one last turn.

♪ ♪

- So the final move made
by the first officer

could have been
to turn the aircraft

toward the runway
that he knows.

Fishburne: That airport
is Langkawi International,

set on an island just west
of the Malaysian peninsula.

- This is where he did
his flight training.

He's familiar with the terrain.

He knows that the runway
is long enough

to land a fully loaded 777.

Fishburne: Instead of landing,

the plane continues
to fly for 230 miles.

- So at this point,
we think that both crew

are incapacitated by hypoxia.

They've passed out,
and the autopilot takes over.

- The aircraft
is carrying 239 people,

who are most likely dead,

and they are flying until
that airplane runs out of fuel.

♪ ♪

Fishburne:
Not everyone is convinced

the cabin depressurized.

Could it be something
more sinister?

♪ ♪

Fishburne: When Malaysia
Flight 370 goes missing,

investigators from nine
countries join the search,

including the United States.

Their biggest challenge
is the lack of evidence,

almost all of which lies
on that missing airplane.

But several months
into their search,

authorities get
a treasure trove of new data,

and it changes the course
of the investigation.

- They hear from a company
called Inmarsat.

They handle satellite data
for commercial airlines.

Things like satellite phones

in the back of your seat
to make calls,

TV and entertainment systems,

these systems are in constant
communication back and forth

with a satellite system.

It's pretty much
just checking in.

[dramatic music]

Well, Inmarsat has records
of this communication.

First thing that happens
is the airplane logs into

the Inmarsat system
at midnight Malaysia time,

which is expected
right before takeoff.

Then the satellite system
checks in with the airplane

on an hourly basis
using automatic pings.

It checks in to see,
hey, are you there?

And we call that a handshake.

While the aircraft transponder
is offline,

the Inmarsat communication
system keeps going.

It takes months
to analyze the data.

And at the time, they didn't
have the technology

to make full sense of it.

But then when they finally
figure out the Inmarsat data,

guess what,
it shows something incredible.

Previously,
the last known contact

of the airplane was 2:22 a.m.,

when it disappears
from military radar.

And investigators assume
that the plane crashed

not too long after.

The Inmarsat data shows
seven automated pings

after 2:22 a.m.,

and those pings go
all the way until 8:19 a.m.

Fishburne:
If the plane continues flying

for six more hours,

where did it go?

- So the technology
at the time didn't allow them

to get a specific location
using the Inmarsat ping.

All they know is that the plane

is within range
of a certain satellite.

So they calculate that
to cover a large area

off the western coast
of Australia,

which is way farther south

than anywhere
they previously looked.

♪ ♪

This means
that MH370 turned south

and flew for six hours

into the middle of nowhere.

Some theorists say
that it's not on autopilot.

And why fly around for so long

if you intend
to kill yourself?

So if the plane
isn't flying itself,

and the pilots are not
committing suicide,

that leaves one other option:

a passenger took control
of the aircraft.

♪ ♪

- There are 227 passengers
on board.

Any of them could
be responsible.

- In the world
post September 11th,

we look very carefully
at who's on a plane.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: As they dig deeper,

investigators realize not all
of the passengers

are who they claim to be.

♪ ♪

- So they checked
everybody's info.

And then there was
this red flag.

Two people had boarded
using stolen passports,

one Italian
and one Australian.

When these two guys checked in,
for some reason,

the passports were not
discovered by Interpol.

So we have two men
on board this airplane

that are trying
to hide something, clearly,

and we didn't know about it.

We don't know who they are,

fake names, fake passports.

These guys could be anybody.

So fortunately, it's not 1950.

It's 2014,
and there's large number

of surveillance everywhere.

We can trace
these guys' steps.

Police found out
these are two friends

using stolen passports.

Turns out these two passports
were stolen in Thailand

about two years before.

They bought a one-way ticket

through a payphone
in Thailand.

From Thailand,
they entered Malaysia

using their real passport.

So now we know who they are.

Fishburne:
The men have a valid reason

to hide their identities.

- These are two
Iranian refugees,

19 and 29,
seeking asylum in Beijing.

They don't have any knowledge
about airplanes.

So with those maneuvers
that MH370 went through,

whoever was doing it

knew what they were doing
in that cockpit.

So it turns out these guys were
not really suspects.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: Investigators also
believe the culprit knows

how to work the plane's
internal systems,

like the transponders.

- There's a passenger on board
who might fit the bill.

He's a flight engineer
from Switzerland.

♪ ♪

The Boeing 777-200 has access
to the avionics bay,

which is under the cockpit.

That's in the forward
first class cabin.

And it's a small lock
to get there.

This is where
the flight computers are.

This is where
the pressurization

and everything is.

So if you could get access
to this room,

you could cause serious harm
to an aircraft in flight.

Would a flight engineer
know about this?

Possibly.

Fishburne: But does the flight
engineer have a motive?

- When we look
into this person,

we find that he has
a clean background.

He works on a completely
different type of aircraft.

He works on corporate jets.

He's probably not a suspect.

Fishburne: With no evidence
to implicate any passengers,

the search goes cold
for three years.

- Remember that proving
what happened

is all about the evidence.

And there is none until
suddenly something washes up.

- It's 2017,

there's been almost no lead
from the MH370.

- But one day,
somebody's walking on the beach

and makes
an incredible discovery.

Fishburne: Over 6,500 miles
from the Malaysian airport,

wreckage appears
on several remote islands.

♪ ♪

- So now, we finally have
some hard evidence

that we could look at that were
the pieces of that airplane.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: For three years

after Malaysia
Flight 370 disappears,

there's no sign
of the actual aircraft,

until 2017,

when debris begin to surface.

- So now we're getting
some of these chunks

that are washed ashore

over the east coast of Africa,

the Mozambique,
and Réunion Island.

Fishburne:
In all, 33 pieces are found

in six different countries.

- They even found
this big piece.

It's a flaperon unique
to the 777

that had a serial number on it
that matches MH370.

So it's got to be
from that airplane.

Fishburne: The parts also
hold an important clue.

- There was some scorch marks
on the debris.

And that tells me that
there may have been a fire.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

What we know for sure is that
the transponder went off

38 minutes into the flight.

Maybe it is caused
by the fire on board.

♪ ♪

- Fires happen
for a variety of reasons,

electrical, mechanical,

maybe something
in the cargo hold,

or something in the cabin.

- MH370 was carrying
about 500 pounds

of lithium-ion batteries
in the forward cargo hold.

♪ ♪

And we know
this is more than enough

to possibly bring down
an aircraft,

as has happened before.

♪ ♪

Fishburne:
On September 3, 2010,

UPS Flight 6 takes off

from Dubai
International Airport.

- This was a massive
747-400 freighter UPS,

piloted by Captain Lampe

and First Officer
Matthew Bell.

- 138 miles into that flight,

the cockpit fills with smoke.

♪ ♪

At this point, it's chaos.

It's not smoke
like from a campfire.

This is thick smoke, so thick
you can't see through it.

They had no chance.

♪ ♪

- First Officer Lampe
disconnected the autopilot,

perhaps trying to make
a quick turn towards Dubai.

And when he did that,
he realized

the primary
flight control system

had failed because of the fire,

and now he couldn't
quite fly it properly.

The captain got out of his seat
to get a fire extinguisher,

unfortunately succumbed
by the fumes

and smoke and fire immediately.

♪ ♪

Bell couldn't
see his instruments,

but he was given a heading

towards Dubai Airport,
Runway 12 Left.

♪ ♪

Sadly, he crashes few miles

on the other side
of the runway.

Both pilots were killed.

♪ ♪

The subsequent investigation
discovered that there was

a pallet with 81,000
lithium-ion batteries

on board that freighter.

Lithium-ion batteries
are extremely volatile,

even the ones that you have
in your phone,

they have high amount
of charge in them,

but very thin walls.

Because of the thin walls
on these batteries,

if one of them catches fire,
it's very easy to propagate

into the other batteries
adjacent to it.

In rare cases,
lithium-ion batteries

actually combust,
almost like a mini explosion.

♪ ♪

Fishburne:
The FAA has recorded

340 airplane incidents
involving lithium batteries.

In 2019,
regulations were put in place

to safeguard passenger planes.

- It is now prohibited
to carry lithium-ion batteries

in passenger airliners

and in the cargo compartment
of an airliner,

and very limited amount
on freighters.

Fishburne: But that was years
after pieces of MH370

began to wash up
on remote shores.

- So in the case of MH370,
you have some charred wreckage,

you also have
a large amount of fuel

in the form
of lithium batteries on board.

Fishburne: What about
the unusual flight path

and erratic maneuvers?

- A lot of people
are questioning

that sharp left turn.

That can also be explained
by the fire.

We're trained that,
in case of a fire,

what you do is you immediately
get off the airway.

- And at first, that's what
it appears that MH370 does.

- Your next step
is to find an airport to land.

Some of these sporadic turns
could be possibly

trying to figure out
where are they going

to land this airplane
as soon as possible?

You have to either
put out this fire

or get that airplane on
the ground as fast as you can.

♪ ♪

Usually, they say it's
between 12 to 14 minutes

to get that airplane from
altitude down to the ground.

And airplane that is designed
to basically glide,

it is very hard to get it
on the ground that quickly,

unless if you
literally nosedive.

♪ ♪

People always ask
why there was no Mayday call,

why they didn't call
on a radio.

- Well, first of all,
the aircraft may not have been

capable at that point
of calling for help.

The radios
or the communication systems

could have been knocked out.

Additionally,
you need to understand

what it's like to fly
in a cockpit or a cabin

that is full of dense smoke.

- If your car is on fire
or your truck or your boat,

you can step out and jump out.

Unfortunately, you can't
do that on an aircraft.

There's no help.
Fire department is not coming.

♪ ♪

- The crew is on their own.

So what they would be doing

is working to put out the fire.

♪ ♪

- 777 has a very sophisticated
onboard fire detection

and fire suppression system.

But unfortunately,
it was not designed

to fight a lithium-ion battery.

♪ ♪

So when there's
nothing else to do,

the other choice
is to climb the aircraft

and starve the fire
of the oxygen.

But the problem with that
is the fire needs

oxygen to breathe, and so do
the folks in the back.

It's a gamble.

♪ ♪

Would the fire run out
of oxygen first

or the people?

If you don't climb,

everyone is gonna burn alive.

It's very possible
that everybody was dead

long before it crashed
into the water.

And perhaps that was the
autopilot flying the airplane,

and no one was in control till
eventually it runs out of fuel.

Fishburne: But this evidence
doesn't close the case

on Malaysia Flight 370.

- We have only a few pieces

of this airplane that weighs
almost a million pounds.

So we can
make educated guesses,

we can keep digging,
we can make assumptions.

But the truth is
we don't have an answer.

Fishburne: In fact, some
experts are highly skeptical

about this physical evidence.

- Some people look at patterns

and the incredible amount
of time that passed

before the wreckage washed up,

and they wonder, "Could this
evidence have been planted?"

Fishburne:
On January 17, 2017,

the official search
for Malaysia Flight 370

is suspended.

Despite a sweep
of 46,000 square miles

of the Indian Ocean seabed,

the rest of the plane
isn't found.

- So the official search,

which took hundreds
of millions of dollars

and years to conduct,

came up empty.

Fishburne:
According to some theorists,

the search might have been
in the wrong area.

- The officials
and most of the media

convinced themselves
that the satellite data

could only mean one thing,
that the plane went south.

But they were wrong.

There's another possible
interpretation of the data.

The reason
that search officials thought

that the plane must have gone
to the southern Indian Ocean

was because
of satellite metadata.

[dramatic music]

MH370 remained visible
to ground base radar systems

until about 2:30
in the morning.

After that,
until 8:19 in the morning,

the only clues are these
satellite data pings.

- They're able to calculate
the distance of the plane

from the satellite
using these pings

and how it travels
through time and space.

- The time delay between the
satellite sending its signal

and the plane replying
allows you to calculate

how far away the plane
is from the satellite.

Fishburne: But that only tells
you one part of the story.

♪ ♪

- The problem with those pings
is it's really challenging

to identify where
the airplane exactly flew.

In fact,
at the time of the crash,

we didn't have the technology
to fully analyze

the data that was provided
by Inmarsat.

- And then we have an airplane
that's on the move.

We don't know
how fast it's going,

and we don't know
how high it is.

These calculations have to be
within milliseconds

or you could be
off thousands of miles.

- Once they did
their calculations,

they came to the conclusion
that this data

meant unequivocally
that the plane could

only have gone
to the southern Indian Ocean.

Fishburne: But there's
another possible route.

♪ ♪

- It's taken years
to figure out the math here,

but the data also aligns
with a northern arc.

Following the northern arc,

the aircraft would have passed
through northern Thailand

and then Central Asia.

- If the plane did fly
along the northern route,

the final ping puts it
over central Kazakhstan.

Fishburne:
If MH370 went to Kazakhstan,

it opens up
a frightening possibility.

♪ ♪

- This theory says that
terrorists hijack the aircraft,

take it to Kazakhstan,
kill the passengers,

and then
they could have refueled

and continued to anywhere
within Russia.

- If the plane went north,

it could have landed safely.

It takes a lot of runway to
land a big plane like the 777.

And there aren't
a lot of long runways

in the remote central part
of Kazakhstan.

But it turns out that there
is a runway not too far away

that is a suitable runway
for a 777 to land on.

- The place is called
Yubileyniy runway,

and it's part of the former
Soviet military base.

Fishburne:
The big question is,

did anyone on the plane
have ties to Russia?

- In first class,
there's a Russian national

named Nikolai Brodskii,

and he's sitting about 15 feet
from an unlocked hatch,

which contains
the electronic brain

that controls all of the
flight surfaces of the plane

and all the communications
with the ground.

And in economy class, you have
two Soviet Army veterans

sitting directly under the box
that makes the satellite ping.

It's entirely possible
that somebody took control

of the plane,
killed everyone on board,

flew off into perfect safety,

refueled, went and hid
the plane somewhere,

and got away scot-free.

Fishburne:
But if MH370 didn't crash,

where did the debris
come from?

- Some theorists say pieces
were taken off the aircraft,

thrown into the Indian Ocean
to throw off investigators.

- The idea that these pieces
might have been planted

by perpetrators would explain
why no debris was spotted

from the aerial searches
over the area

where the plane was presumed
to be missing for months.

Was MH370 an accident
or was it a crime?

A perfect crime.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: Despite the end

of the official investigation
in 2018,

there remain countless
private citizens

dedicated to solving
this mystery.

Around the world, scientists,
journalists, nonprofits,

even major corporations

continue to hunt for answers

about what really happened

to Malaysia Flight 370,

answers that will hopefully
bring closure

to the families
of those on board.

I'm Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching

"History's Greatest Mysteries."

♪ ♪