The Disappearing Act

1

Flight MH370

Friday, 7 March 2014. It is almost midnight. Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) is in night-time mode. Almost all the stores and cafés, including the shop that sells Malaysian pewter souvenirs, have pulled out their accordion shutters and switched off their window lights. The day’s last passengers are left with just a few steel benches in large, empty corridors leading to the departure gate lounges.

In front of gates C1–C3, some 30 passengers for Flight MH370 to Beijing are waiting, standing in front of the information screen, at which they look up from time to time. At KLIA, passenger and hand-luggage security controls are carried out just before boarding. Seasoned air travellers are familiar with the procedure. Put your belongings on the scanner conveyor, take your computer out of its case, remove your belt and empty the contents of your pockets – coins, keys, glasses and mobile phone – into a plastic tray. Sometimes you even have to take off your shoes and socks. But security controls at KLIA are anything but zealous, and a certain slackness is visible in the security video of passengers filmed before they board Flight MH370.

As the passengers gather on the far side of the three electronic security archways, the security staff – half a dozen men and women in black-and-white uniforms – are talking to each other. Calm and relaxed, they await the instruction to start the control. The aircrew, meanwhile, have already gone through and are now on board, getting the aircraft ready. First through were six air hostesses and flight attendants, and then 10 minutes later the captain and his co-pilot. The two men put their peaked caps and luggage on the scanner. Neither takes anything out of his bag, not even his flight iPad. Nor do they take off their jackets. Both are given a quick body search. They do not speak to each other. The last time Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah flew MH370 and its return Flight MH371 was on 22 February, just two weeks earlier. Other air hostesses arrive later. One at 23:33, and two more at 23:38. Passenger boarding begins at 23:46, just under one hour before take-off.

One of the first to pass through is a very stylish Chinese woman. She is wearing a frilly hat that she does not remove, with a matching pink-and-white outfit. She is followed by a young couple with a collapsible pushchair and a small girl who teeters around them. Although the passenger list notes that there are nationals of 14 different countries, the great majority of the passengers seem to be Chinese: Chinese from continental China, from Malaysia, Canada, Australia, the United States or Taiwan.

At this late hour, people’s movements are a little clumsy. Faces are tired and drawn. This daily flight is usually one for regulars. It is sometimes called a ‘red-eye flight’, a night flight that is not long enough for you to sleep properly, as it takes less than six hours, including take-off and landing.1 On weekdays, MH370 mainly carries businessmen, but the Friday night–Saturday morning flight is different. Its passengers are going home or spending the weekend in Beijing. Most are dressed for the cold weather of northern China rather than the equatorial heat they are leaving behind.

The families of the fated crew and passengers have kept on asking for this video without success, but I was able to view it through wholly unofficial channels. On the video, it is possible to recognise some of the passengers referred to in subsequent press reports, such as the celebrated calligrapher with his magnificent white hair. The 20 engineers and researchers employed by the American electronics company Freescale Semiconductor, all of whom are Malaysian or Chinese, are harder to identify. You can spot a group of tourists returning from a trip to Nepal, and some 30 upper-middle-class Chinese who have gone to Kuala Lumpur for an investment trip at the invitation of a property developer, with a view to buying property in Malaysia. There is also a 32-year-old stuntman, who already has an impressive career under his belt. One month earlier he had moved to Kuala Lumpur to work on the new Netflix series Marco Polo. He is flying back to Beijing to spend the weekend with his wife and two small daughters. Two retired Australian couples stand out from the rest: Western in appearance, taller and more heavily built than the other passengers. One is holding an Akubra – a well-known Australian hat brand – in his hand. The four French passengers also stand out in this mainly Asian crowd – a mother, accompanied by three young people: her daughter, one of her two sons and his French-Chinese girlfriend. After a week’s holiday in Malaysia, they too are returning to Beijing, where they live. At this very moment, the father is in Paris. He is set to board a flight to Beijing a few hours later, and when he does so all he knows is that his wife and children are on their way there too. The other Caucasian passengers are one middle-aged American, two young Iranians, a New Zealander, a Russian and two Ukrainians.

One year later, an American blogger was to suggest that the Ukrainians could be implicated in MH370’s disappearance, as he suspects them – on the basis of a hypothetical scenario2 – of having hijacked the plane to Kazakhstan. The two Ukrainians arrive together, in the last few minutes of boarding, and they look far more energetic than their fellow passengers. They have the physiques of US Marines and wear body-hugging black T-shirts. Each has a large carry-on bag, and they whisk them on to the conveyor belt with practised ease. I found out much later that their tickets were the only ones that were completely untraceable by the investigators. No idea where they were purchased, no travel agent, no method of payment, no place of issue. Highly abnormal apparently. The two men happened to be seated on row 27, right below the Satcom antenna. Of all the passengers who board the flight, if you had to pick out two as being hijackers, the Ukrainians are the ones who best look the part, in terms of age, physical condition, appearance and body language.3

Some passengers go through the security archways still wearing a coat, a belt or a hoodie. Looking unconcerned, they come through in small groups, and then go back again one by one. Wristwatches trigger the alarm too. The camera films this gently chaotic coming and going. One passenger opens a Thermos flask and turns it upside down to prove it is empty. Then another passenger takes a king-size bottle of Coca-Cola out of a bag that has just been scanned, and drinks it in full sight of everyone as he awaits his travelling companions.

An employee of Malaysia Airlines (MAS), in the turquoise jacket worn by ground staff, goes through the archway in the middle with a transparent plastic bag in his hand, seemingly containing rolls of fax paper. The light flashes red. No one reacts. He continues on his way without being checked. A little later, a wallet becomes lodged between the metal rollers after passing through the scanner; and then a female passenger gets her head stuck in her coat as she slips it back on, unintentionally creating a brief moment of comedy. In short, the boarding process is rather disorderly and lackadaisical. In less tragic circumstances, the legendary Malaysian happy-go-lucky approach would elicit a smile in anyone watching it back on video.

Obviously, air transport security regulations, although universal, vary from one airport to the next. But at Kuala Lumpur, it’s difficult to find any information about regulations in the airport’s official documentation. On its website, under the heading ‘Airport Check-In Guidelines’, the subsection ‘Security Checks’ consists of two lines of text: ‘Security Regulation on Hand Luggage’ and ‘Hand Baggage Guidelines’.4 The information stops there. No details whatsoever. Unbelievable – and highly unusual for an airport that serves more than 40 countries, and handles 30 million passengers each year.

Just when it seems that everyone has been through security, a young Chinese man, wearing a very tight-fitting white suit and sporting an Elvis-style quiff, leaves the waiting room and strides quickly through the security archways in the wrong direction. He heads back towards the terminal as though he has forgotten something. At the end of the video, at 10 minutes past midnight, with the security staff apparently shutting down their control station, the young man has not returned. Did he save his life by missing his flight, or did he rush back in time to board? More importantly, have some of the other passengers, who on this video can be seen heading towards the boarding gates, been able or allowed to step out at the last minute too?

Thirty minutes later, the Boeing 777-200, with the manufacturer serial number 28420 and the Malaysia Airlines registration 9M-MRO,5 takes off as it does every night at the same time: 00:40, give or take one or two minutes. The aircraft’s ascent, which takes 20 minutes, seems trouble-free.

At 01:01, the plane reaches 35,000 feet. Flight conditions are good, not to say ideal. The in-flight catering service can begin, but usually on this flight passengers take no notice as they try to get some sleep. At 01:07, the aircraft sends out its first ACARS message (the acronym stands for Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System). The bulletin provides real-time data indicating the aircraft’s technical performance levels, which are theoretically sent to the ground automatically, both to Boeing back in Chicago in the US, and to Malaysia Airlines. The system is activated at regular intervals, which depend on the subscription taken out by the airline. In the case of Malaysia Airlines, the interval is 30 minutes. For some airlines, the interval depends on the route.

Everything is normal. Malaysia Airlines enjoys an excellent reputation both for safety and service. Its fleet is very modern, and its aircraft are on average four years old, although the Boeing on Flight MH370 is 12 years old. The plane was delivered in 2002, and it has already flown for 53,465 hours, performing 7,525 cycles (i.e. flights) prior to this particular MH370 flight.

Its only recorded accident at the time was a ground collision with another plane at Shanghai Pudong Airport in August 2012. On 23 February 2014, 12 days before the night in question, the aircraft was in the hangars of Malaysia Airlines undergoing maintenance. One of the first announcements from the airline after the plane’s disappearance states, ‘There were no issues on the health of the aircraft.’ The next maintenance control was scheduled for 19 June.

After flying for 40 minutes, the airliner is about to leave the airspace of Malaysia and enter Vietnamese airspace right next to it.6 Less than five hours remain before the descent towards Beijing. Landing is scheduled for 06:30. At 01:19, the Boeing leaves the Malaysian air traffic control zone with a routine message: ‘Good night, Malaysian three seven zero.’ After the investigation, the pilot’s friends, family members and an expert were asked to identify the voices in the transmissions made between MH370 and air traffic control. It was established that the initial speech segments before take-off were those of the first officer, meaning that the captain or pilot in command (PIC) was at the helm. The subsequent voice recordings, including the last transmission, are of the captain, meaning that it is the co-pilot who is flying the plane at the time it disappears. The captain’s voice is relaxed and does not sound suspicious in any way. Normal procedure is that immediately after leaving Malaysian airspace, the aircraft should declare its presence to the Vietnamese authorities with a message such as: ‘Ho Chi Minh control, Malaysia 370, flight level 350, good morning.’ But there is no call from MH370. In the ensuing minutes, the situation veers dramatically into the abnormal, the unknown, the unheard of.

At 01:20, five seconds after passing waypoint IGARI assigned to Singapore,7 and 90 seconds after its last radio transmission, the transponder – the main means of communication between the aircraft and air traffic control – is switched off. Or it switches itself off. The button is located between the seats of the two pilots. Switching the button is as easy as turning a car radio on or off, requiring a quarter-turn in one direction or the other. But switching the transponder off between two air traffic control zones is an extraordinary thing to do – and highly suspicious. According to the information provided by the Malaysian authorities one week later, the aircraft first turns to starboard for a few seconds, and then starts making a U-turn to the port side and heads west-south-west. Then the ACARS system (which automatically controls the sending of technical information) is switched off as well. Or, again, it switches itself off somehow. Pilots are not even taught the procedure for doing this, because there is no imaginable reason for switching off the ACARS system, never any justification for doing so, whatever the situation. Although often described later as ‘complicated’, the procedure is in fact not particularly complex. With three clicks on the communications page of the trackpad, it is possible to deactivate the three transmission modes. The two actions – switching off the transponder and, a little later, the ACARS system – at first sight rule out the most frequently encountered scenarios in any accident: technical failure, pilot suicide and in-flight explosion. They suggest that someone has taken control of the aircraft in a way that has never previously occurred in the history of aviation.8

Deprived of its ACARS system, the aircraft does not transmit even the slightest item of technical information, which, when relayed by satellite, could have enabled it to be located. And so the 01:37 ACARS bulletin is not sent. Nor is the 02:07 bulletin. Is the alarm raised immediately at Boeing, Rolls-Royce and Malaysia Airlines? At first sight, yes, ‘necessarily’, assume all the experts questioned just after the aircraft’s disappearance. But not a single comment, explanation or technical insight will be forthcoming from the American plane maker Boeing or the British jet engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce, these two cornerstones of the global aircraft industry. When Air France Flight 447 went down between Rio de Janeiro and Paris in 2009, the last ACARS bulletin made it possible to locate the crash site, as the indications gave the crash time to within five minutes.

So has a perfect hijacking, leaving no trace, just taken place? Or, more accurately, an almost perfect hijacking. For even though it is no longer transmitting signals, the aircraft automatically receives a silent electromagnetic signal, called a ‘handshake ping’. Only the echo of the ping indicates whether it has been received. Until this unique situation arose, these pings had never been used for the purpose of locating an aircraft. Mathematical extrapolations of the highest order of complexity will be needed in an effort to interpret these last indications of the aircraft’s whereabouts, and thus deduce from them its final trajectory.

After the message ‘Good night, Malaysian three seven zero’, we know nothing more of what happened in the sky on board MH370. On the ground, however, it is the start of many hours of tragic blundering, during which time the Boeing vanished into thin air.