Malaysian officials released a preliminary report on Thursday detailing missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370’s mysterious journey on March 8, providing the first complete glimpse of the timeline with maps showing the Boeing 777-200ER’s presumed flight path.
According to the official account of what happened, Flight 370 departed Runway 32R from Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 12:41 a.m. local time on its scheduled flight to Beijing. The jetliner reached its cruising altitude of FL 350 at 1:01 a.m. and, at 1:19 a.m., Flight 370 was instructed to contact Ho Chi Minh Center. Someone in the cockpit signed off with the now famous “Good night, Malaysian Three Seven Zero.” That was the last communication from the flight. The last report from its onboard ACARS system came at about 1:08 a.m., the report notes.