By Samantha Hawley
In March 2014, the then Malaysian transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, fronted the world’s press and told them MH370 had “vanished”.
“There is no real precedent for a situation like this,” he said.
Almost three years since the Boeing 777 disappeared from aviation radars the biggest mystery in the history of aviation remains unexplained, but the search for answers has been suspended.
Malaysia, China and Australia have jointly decided to end the search for the Boeing 777 and its 239 passengers and crew, six weeks out from the three-year anniversary of its disappearance on route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8th 2014.
It is not a decision that has come as a surprise — the end of the search was flagged last year and confirmed on Tuesday in a statement from the transport ministers of the three nations.
“Today, the last search vessel has left the underwater search area,” the statement declared.
“Despite every effort using the best science available, cutting-edge technology, as well as modelling and advice from highly skilled professionals who are the best in their field, unfortunately, the search has not been able to locate the aircraft.”
The search was hampered from the beginning.
It took Malaysia four days to reveal that a massive international effort to find the plane in the South China Sea to its north had been pointless, announcing for the first time defence satellite data showed the plane had taken a sharp turn left towards the Strait of Malacca.
Malaysian President Najib Razak later declared, “flight MH370 ended in the Southern Indian Ocean”.
The search has concentrated there ever since, based also on satellite imaging from the British company Inmarsat.