1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:03,160 Speaker 1: All right, admit it. Whenever you fly, there's kind of 2 00:00:03,200 --> 00:00:05,400 Speaker 1: a nagging little thought in the back of your head 3 00:00:05,440 --> 00:00:09,680 Speaker 1: that starts with the words what if. But you got 4 00:00:09,680 --> 00:00:12,000 Speaker 1: to get to your destination, right, so you put those 5 00:00:12,039 --> 00:00:15,880 Speaker 1: thoughts on do not disturb, and you get where you're going. Now, 6 00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:19,520 Speaker 1: imagine getting on a huge jet, taking off and just 7 00:00:19,600 --> 00:00:25,279 Speaker 1: completely disappearing. Planes crash really infrequently, but we pretty much 8 00:00:25,320 --> 00:00:29,240 Speaker 1: always know where and why eventually. But that was not 9 00:00:29,400 --> 00:00:32,840 Speaker 1: the case with Malaysia Airlines Flight three seventy. It took 10 00:00:32,880 --> 00:00:37,040 Speaker 1: off from Kuala Lumpur on March eighth, twenty fourteen, and 11 00:00:37,159 --> 00:00:41,159 Speaker 1: was never seen again. I'm Patty Steele. The people missing, 12 00:00:41,440 --> 00:00:44,599 Speaker 1: the search, what may have happened, and the way that 13 00:00:44,680 --> 00:00:48,600 Speaker 1: disappearance changed the way we fly forever. That's next on 14 00:00:48,640 --> 00:00:56,320 Speaker 1: the backstory. The backstory is back, all right. It's twelve 15 00:00:56,400 --> 00:01:00,720 Speaker 1: forty one am when Malaysia Airlines Flight three seventy takes 16 00:01:00,720 --> 00:01:05,160 Speaker 1: off from Kuala Lumpur headed for Beijing, China. Two hundred 17 00:01:05,200 --> 00:01:08,080 Speaker 1: and thirty nine people are on board on a six 18 00:01:08,160 --> 00:01:12,200 Speaker 1: hour overnight flight. It's a beautiful, clear night and the 19 00:01:12,240 --> 00:01:15,720 Speaker 1: wide body bowing seven seventy seven, one of the safest 20 00:01:15,760 --> 00:01:19,640 Speaker 1: planes ever built. Has two experienced pilots of the controls 21 00:01:20,160 --> 00:01:25,160 Speaker 1: in the cabin families, business travelers, students. Nothing unusual. The 22 00:01:25,280 --> 00:01:28,959 Speaker 1: lights are dimmed as people settle in for the flight. Then, 23 00:01:29,319 --> 00:01:32,880 Speaker 1: just forty minutes later, at one nineteen a m. The 24 00:01:32,959 --> 00:01:37,640 Speaker 1: captain radio's air traffic control. He says good night Malaysia 25 00:01:37,760 --> 00:01:42,320 Speaker 1: three seven zero. Two minutes after that, the plane's transponder 26 00:01:42,480 --> 00:01:47,200 Speaker 1: its digital identity goes dark on radar screens. The aircraft 27 00:01:47,560 --> 00:01:51,840 Speaker 1: vanishes into thin air. At first, controllers assume it's a glitch. 28 00:01:52,280 --> 00:01:56,640 Speaker 1: Planes don't just disappear, except this one did. At one 29 00:01:56,720 --> 00:02:00,320 Speaker 1: twenty one a m. The jet and those lives simply 30 00:02:00,600 --> 00:02:05,760 Speaker 1: stop existing. There's no distress call, no explosion, and no explanation. 31 00:02:06,720 --> 00:02:11,760 Speaker 1: Military radar later reveals something shocking. After losing contact, the 32 00:02:11,760 --> 00:02:16,200 Speaker 1: plane turns around, not a gradual drift, but an intentional 33 00:02:16,280 --> 00:02:20,400 Speaker 1: change in direction. Flight three seventy flew back across Malaysia, 34 00:02:20,720 --> 00:02:23,640 Speaker 1: over the Andaman Sea, and then out into the South 35 00:02:23,760 --> 00:02:28,240 Speaker 1: China Sea again. No emergency call, no warning to passengers, 36 00:02:28,520 --> 00:02:32,680 Speaker 1: no signal asking for help. For hours, the jet just 37 00:02:32,760 --> 00:02:38,000 Speaker 1: continued flying until fuel exhaustion probably ended the journey somewhere 38 00:02:38,040 --> 00:02:41,640 Speaker 1: in the vast dark, southern Indian Ocean. But here's the 39 00:02:41,720 --> 00:02:45,720 Speaker 1: chilling part. For much of that time, nobody was watching. 40 00:02:46,480 --> 00:02:49,519 Speaker 1: What a huge jet with that many people on board, 41 00:02:49,760 --> 00:02:52,720 Speaker 1: had no one checking in on its position or progress. 42 00:02:53,360 --> 00:02:56,639 Speaker 1: The loss of this aircraft and all those lives uncovered 43 00:02:56,639 --> 00:03:00,520 Speaker 1: a fatal flaw in the international air traffic control system. 44 00:03:01,280 --> 00:03:04,880 Speaker 1: Of course, when the disappearance becomes public, the response is 45 00:03:04,919 --> 00:03:09,600 Speaker 1: immediate and chaotic. Dozens of countries join the search. Satellites 46 00:03:09,639 --> 00:03:13,760 Speaker 1: are rechecked, ships and aircraft comb the ocean. The search 47 00:03:13,840 --> 00:03:18,560 Speaker 1: zone expands again and again, eventually covering an area larger 48 00:03:18,560 --> 00:03:23,520 Speaker 1: than many countries combined, forty six thousand square miles. It 49 00:03:23,600 --> 00:03:28,160 Speaker 1: becomes the most expensive search in aviation history. Debris is 50 00:03:28,200 --> 00:03:31,800 Speaker 1: eventually found, pieces of a wing washed up thousands of 51 00:03:31,840 --> 00:03:35,720 Speaker 1: miles away, but never the main wreckage. No black boxes, 52 00:03:36,160 --> 00:03:40,680 Speaker 1: no real answers. The mystery becomes global and deeply personal. 53 00:03:41,160 --> 00:03:46,640 Speaker 1: What had happened? News cycles speculate theories spiral from mechanical 54 00:03:46,680 --> 00:03:51,080 Speaker 1: failure to hijacking to deliberate action, and all that time, 55 00:03:51,360 --> 00:03:54,920 Speaker 1: families wait. They described the last twelve years as a 56 00:03:55,000 --> 00:03:58,440 Speaker 1: roller coaster of emotions with a lack of closure, making 57 00:03:58,480 --> 00:04:02,080 Speaker 1: it impossible to move on. Grace Nathan is a lawyer 58 00:04:02,120 --> 00:04:05,120 Speaker 1: who lost her mom Anne on the flight. She's become 59 00:04:05,160 --> 00:04:09,000 Speaker 1: a powerful voice for the families searching for answers while 60 00:04:09,160 --> 00:04:11,960 Speaker 1: raising her own children who never got to meet their grandmother, 61 00:04:12,520 --> 00:04:15,640 Speaker 1: and families of the pilots have faced terrific pressure and 62 00:04:15,720 --> 00:04:19,359 Speaker 1: pain from speculation by the media, which has attacked the 63 00:04:19,400 --> 00:04:23,760 Speaker 1: reputations of their loved ones whom they lost. Malaysian police 64 00:04:23,800 --> 00:04:27,560 Speaker 1: investigated the homes and financial records of the pilots and crew. 65 00:04:27,960 --> 00:04:31,680 Speaker 1: Their reports said they found nothing of concern, but US 66 00:04:31,680 --> 00:04:36,600 Speaker 1: officials think somebody in the cockpit reprogrammed the aircraft's autopilot 67 00:04:36,960 --> 00:04:40,640 Speaker 1: to head south over the Indian Ocean. Media reports say 68 00:04:40,800 --> 00:04:44,840 Speaker 1: Malaysian police identified that jet's captain as the prime suspect 69 00:04:45,160 --> 00:04:48,680 Speaker 1: should human intervention be proven as the cause of the disappearance, 70 00:04:49,120 --> 00:04:52,159 Speaker 1: and former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said in a 71 00:04:52,200 --> 00:04:56,080 Speaker 1: news documentary, the very top levels of the Malaysian government 72 00:04:56,200 --> 00:05:00,400 Speaker 1: think it was mass murdered suicide by the pilot, it seems. 73 00:05:00,400 --> 00:05:04,120 Speaker 1: An FBI analysis of the captain's home flight simulator's hard 74 00:05:04,200 --> 00:05:07,840 Speaker 1: drive showed a month before the disappearance, heat access to 75 00:05:07,960 --> 00:05:11,520 Speaker 1: route that closely matched the possible flight over the Indian Ocean. 76 00:05:12,080 --> 00:05:16,320 Speaker 1: The investigation claims the Malaysian government withheld that evidence, not 77 00:05:16,360 --> 00:05:19,000 Speaker 1: wanting to publicize the fact that one of their pilots 78 00:05:19,200 --> 00:05:22,800 Speaker 1: could have planned a mass murder suicide by purposely crashing 79 00:05:22,839 --> 00:05:26,320 Speaker 1: one of their jets. The Malaysian Prime Minister did admit 80 00:05:26,640 --> 00:05:29,920 Speaker 1: it was clear the radar transponders and the flight data 81 00:05:29,960 --> 00:05:34,320 Speaker 1: transmission system were turned off deliberately by somebody trying to 82 00:05:34,400 --> 00:05:37,880 Speaker 1: hide the plane's position. So what has changed in the 83 00:05:37,880 --> 00:05:42,360 Speaker 1: airline industry since this? In twenty fourteen, commercial planes weren't 84 00:05:42,400 --> 00:05:46,960 Speaker 1: required to transmit their location continuously and the systems were 85 00:05:47,080 --> 00:05:52,080 Speaker 1: really outdated. This flight exposed the flaw. A two hundred 86 00:05:52,160 --> 00:05:55,960 Speaker 1: million dollar aircraft filled with people had vanished in the 87 00:05:56,000 --> 00:05:59,640 Speaker 1: age of smartphones and satellites and the world couldn't track it. 88 00:06:00,360 --> 00:06:05,200 Speaker 1: So rules changed. Airlines adopted more frequent position reporting, battery 89 00:06:05,240 --> 00:06:09,560 Speaker 1: life on underwater beacons has been extended, New satellite tracking 90 00:06:09,600 --> 00:06:13,320 Speaker 1: systems have been developed, and standards were updated so planes 91 00:06:13,360 --> 00:06:17,040 Speaker 1: could be followed even in remote air space. In other words, 92 00:06:17,040 --> 00:06:20,960 Speaker 1: Malaysia Flight three seventy forced aviation to admit something it 93 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:26,039 Speaker 1: had avoided for years. Safety hadn't failed, visibility had, and 94 00:06:26,120 --> 00:06:30,279 Speaker 1: the cost of that blindness was permanent uncertainty. Just over 95 00:06:30,360 --> 00:06:34,360 Speaker 1: a month ago, almost twelve years after the disappearance, Malaysia 96 00:06:34,400 --> 00:06:38,039 Speaker 1: Airlines was finally ordered to pay damages to victims families. 97 00:06:38,680 --> 00:06:42,839 Speaker 1: But still, the disappearance of Malaysia Flight three seventy remains 98 00:06:42,880 --> 00:06:47,280 Speaker 1: one of aviation's greatest mysteries, not because we don't have theories, 99 00:06:47,720 --> 00:06:51,159 Speaker 1: but because we don't have closure. Somewhere in one of 100 00:06:51,160 --> 00:06:55,040 Speaker 1: the most remote parts of the planet, the answers still exist, 101 00:06:55,720 --> 00:06:58,599 Speaker 1: and every time a plane disappears from radar for even 102 00:06:58,800 --> 00:07:02,560 Speaker 1: just a moment, the industry remembers the flight that never 103 00:07:02,640 --> 00:07:06,320 Speaker 1: came back. Because the scariest part of the story isn't 104 00:07:06,320 --> 00:07:11,200 Speaker 1: how the plane went down, it's how quietly it simply vanished. 105 00:07:12,080 --> 00:07:15,040 Speaker 1: I hope you're enjoying the Backstory with Patty Steele. Please 106 00:07:15,160 --> 00:07:18,360 Speaker 1: leave a review and follow or subscribe for free to 107 00:07:18,360 --> 00:07:22,160 Speaker 1: get new episodes delivered automatically. Also feel free to dm 108 00:07:22,160 --> 00:07:23,920 Speaker 1: me if you have a story you'd like me to cover. 109 00:07:24,280 --> 00:07:28,680 Speaker 1: On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. 110 00:07:32,440 --> 00:07:36,200 Speaker 1: I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia, 111 00:07:36,240 --> 00:07:40,280 Speaker 1: Premiere Networks, the Elvis Durand Group, and Steel Trap Productions. 112 00:07:40,600 --> 00:07:44,200 Speaker 1: Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We 113 00:07:44,280 --> 00:07:47,680 Speaker 1: have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to 114 00:07:47,760 --> 00:07:50,720 Speaker 1: reach out to me with comments and even story suggestions 115 00:07:50,800 --> 00:07:54,200 Speaker 1: on Instagram at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at 116 00:07:54,200 --> 00:07:57,840 Speaker 1: Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele, 117 00:07:58,160 --> 00:08:01,240 Speaker 1: the pieces of history you didn't no you needed to know.