Timeline: Malaysia Airlines flight 370 disappearance
March 8, 2014
12:41 a.m. local (UTC + 8:00) — MH370 departs Kuala Lumpur International Airport headed to Beijing. The Boeing 777-200ER plane carries 239 people — 227 passengers and 12 crew members from 14 countries.
1:07 a.m. — The plane's data reporting system shut down. The plane remains on course.
1:21 a.m. — The transponder that transmits location and altitude shuts down. U.S. investigators can't determine if a human shut down the transmissions or if it was an "act of piracy," a takeover.
2:40 a.m. — Subang Air Traffic Control reported that it lost contact with flight MH370 about 2½ hours after take off. The last signal on radar from the plane was received as it transferred into Vietnamese airspace above Cau Mau province.
6:30 a.m. — MH370 was supposed to land at Beijing Capital International Airport.
11 a.m. — Family members of MH370 passengers gather at the airport as the authorities update them on the plane's status.
March 9, 2014
A low-flying non-search plane spots an object in the water during the afternoon. Six planes and seven ships from Vietnam cannot locate the rectangular piece of debris.
March 9-31
Investigators respond with search crews to several reports of debris spotted in the Indian Ocean. The number of countries sending help to search using satellites, planes, ships and submarine crafts increases from 14 to 26.
March 24
Malaysian government officials officially determine that MH370 crashed in the Indian Ocean.
April 1
Malaysian officials release the final transcript detailing the last communication in the MH370 cockpit. At 1:19 a.m. on March 8, the last words recorded were, "Good night Malaysian three-seven-zero."
April 5
An Australian ship gets signals thought to be from the black box data and voice recorders on MH370. They focus on 22,364 square miles off the Australian coast. The search races against time to find the signal's origin before the batteries expire.
May 28
Search crews finish a probe of the southern part of the Indian Ocean, according to the U.S. Navy Bluefin 21 team.
Sept. 30
Armed with new 3D maps of the southern Indian Ocean floor, search vessels started to focus on a 350-nautical-mile-long stretch of seabed for MH370. Chinese and Australian scientists mapped the floor to help Netherlands-owned Fugro Equator and Phoenix International-owned GO Phoenix start a new mission in October, searching the depths of the ocean. This is the newest search after a four-month delay.
2015
March 8, 2015
At the one-year anniversary of MH370's disappearance, searchers still don't know what happened to the plane. Investigators have said the search for wreckage could take years.
July 29
9 a.m. — Beach cleaners discovered airplane debris on the beach of La Reunion island in the Indian Ocean. Malaysia's chief investigator said the item is a 6-foot long piece that looks like a "flaperon" — part of a plane's wing.
July 30
Malaysian authorities declare they're "almost certain" the debris found on the Indian Ocean island coast came from a Boeing 777 aircraft. French authorities will ship the debris to Toulouse, France, the Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said. La Reunion is a French territory. Members of the cleaning crew that found the initial debris Wednesday also discovered a suitcase with wheels near the same location.
Aug. 5
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak confirms that the found Boeing 777 flaperon is from the wing of MH370's plane. French analysts in Toulouse, southern France, matched the plane parts. Investigators will also examine the metal on the flaperon with microscopes to try and find out what caused the plane to go down.
