The tragic presumed crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 on Saturday that apparently claimed the lives of 239 people remains a mystery, but it is a mystery that can be solved if searchers find the wreckage, which is still a big “if” at this point. The Boeing 777-200ER that presumably crashed into the ocean was equipped with a capable flight data recording system that captured thousands of flight parameters per second, including the airplane’s airspeed and its altitude, how fast it was climbing or descending, how the pilots were handling the controls, and what the various flight control surfaces, like rudders and elevator, were doing. It also featured a cockpit voice recorder that would have captured the conversations of the pilots, or anyone else in the cockpit, at the time of the emergency, as well as any attempt that the pilots might have made to contact air traffic controllers.
In the case where an airplane disappears suddenly from radar at great altitude, the cause of the crash is often a mystery until the recorders, which are designed to withstand enormous heat, fire, cold and depth below water, are recovered and analyzed. Such was the case with Air France 447, which disappeared over the Atlantic in 2009. We did not know what had happened until we began getting data from the airplane, though in the case of AF 447, some of that data was uplinked via satellite while the Airbus A330 was in flight. Most installations simply store the flight and voice data locally, on the recorders’ solid-state memory, awaiting recovery after the crash for investigators to analyze it. There’s been no indication that the Malaysia Airlines 777-200 had any such data uploading capabilities, but it probably did. Perhaps data from that source will help shed light on what caused the disappearance, or at least point us in the right direction to find the airplane, which today is still missing. We eventually learned that Air France 447 crashed because its air data sensors iced over, rendering the airplane’s flight instruments unreliable. It was still completely flyable, but in the dark and the cloud with a great deal of conflicting information before their eyes, the pilots could not figure out how to control it. They essentially flew the airplane in a controlled deep stall until it impacted the water. It is the only such accident of an airliner we know of, and it took investigators more than a year to find the wreckage and a couple of years to determine the cause.
Similarly, TWA Flight 800, a Boeing 747 en route from JFK to Paris crashed into the Atlantic after suffering a catastrophic breakup at around 15,000 feet. The FBI took 18 months to close its criminal investigation, ruling that it could find no evidence of terrorist links to the crash. The wreckage was found immediately, but it took the NTSB about four years to come to the conclusion that the flight was brought down by an explosion in the center fuel tank, a cause that no one speculated in the immediate aftermath of the crash.
What we know at this point about Malaysia 370 is enough effectively to rule out a number of possible accident scenarios. According to some reports, the airplane had reached 35,000 feet when radar contact was lost. It was early on reported that it had made a turn from its flight-planned course, which is a tantalizing clue, if it indeed is true. We do know that no radio communications were made for some time before the airplane disappeared from radar.
Because there were no communications between the crew and ATC and because the radar returns halted, it is very likely though not certain that the airplane broke up in midair. This will be confirmed when the aircraft’s wreckage is located by the distribution of the fallen pieces. If they are widely scattered, the flight broke up at altitude, as was the case with TWA Flight 800. If the wreckage is found in a contained area, as was the case with Air France 447, it broke up as it crashed into the sea. There is also a remote possibility that the wreckage will be found on land. The possible search area is immense.
There are a number of scenarios that cannot be ruled out. A hijacking or terrorist takeover followed by the detonation of a bomb is a very real possibility. Much less likely is an explosive decompression caused by some structural failure related to metal fatigue. The Boeing 777 is a long-range airplane that unlike smaller, short-haul airliners goes through relatively few cycles of pressurization. Furthermore, the 777 model has no history of metal-fatigue-related problems. Even in the event of fire, dual engine failure, or a loss of control of the airplane, one would expect the pilots to have contracted ATC. They did not.
If the flight data and voice recorders are recovered, we will very likely learn why Malaysia Flight 370 crashed into the sea. Until we do, we are left with a mystery, but a mystery, thanks to the information we do possess, that has relatively few plausible explanations.
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