![]() ![]() The Vietnamese controllers, meanwhile, saw MH370 cross into their airspace and then disappear from radar. When he finally did, he assumed that the airplane was in the hands of Ho Chi Minh, somewhere out beyond his range. The controller in Kuala Lumpur was dealing with other traffic elsewhere on his screen and simply didn’t notice. The time was 1:21 a.m., 39 minutes after takeoff. Five seconds after MH370 crossed into Vietnamese airspace, the symbol representing its transponder dropped from the screens of Malaysian air traffic control, and 37 seconds later the entire airplane disappeared from secondary radar. It depends on a transponder signal that is transmitted by each airplane and contains richer information-for instance, the airplane’s identity and altitude-than primary radar does. Air-traffic-control systems use what is known as secondary radar. Primary radar relies on simple, raw pings off objects in the sky. The pilots never checked in with Ho Chi Minh or answered any of the subsequent attempts to raise them. It was the last the world heard from MH370. Malaysian three-seven-zero.” He did not read back the frequency, as he should have, but otherwise the transmission sounded normal. ![]() Good night.” Zaharie answered, “Good night. Zaharie again reported the plane’s level at 35,000 feet.Įleven minutes later, as the airplane closed in on a waypoint near the start of Vietnamese air-traffic jurisdiction, the controller at Kuala Lumpur Center radioed, “Malaysian three-seven-zero, contact Ho Chi Minh one-two-zero-decimal-nine. ![]() At 1:08 the flight crossed the Malaysian coastline and set out across the South China Sea in the direction of Vietnam. he radioed that they had leveled off at 35,000 feet-a superfluous report in radar-surveilled airspace where the norm is to report leaving an altitude, not arriving at one. Zaharie’s transmissions were a bit unusual. Up in the cockpit that night, while First Officer Fariq flew the airplane, Captain Zaharie handled the radios. Most of the passengers were Chinese of the rest, 38 were Malaysian, and in descending order the others came from Indonesia, Australia, India, France, the United States, Iran, Ukraine, Canada, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Russia, and Taiwan. They had 227 passengers to care for, including five children. In the cabin were 10 flight attendants, all of them Malaysian. To hear more feature stories, get the Audm iPhone app. In the cockpit, Fariq would have been deferential to him, but Zaharie was not known for being overbearing. He flew it frequently, and often posted to online forums about his hobby. In his first house he had installed an elaborate Microsoft flight simulator. He was married and had three adult children. In Malaysian style, he was known by his first name, Zaharie. His trainer was the pilot in command, a man named Zaharie Ahmad Shah, who at 53 was one of the most senior captains at Malaysia Airlines. ![]() This was a training flight for him, the last one he would soon be fully certified. Fariq Hamid, the first officer, was flying the airplane. The designator for Malaysia Airlines is MH. on the quiet, moonlit night of March 8, 2014, a Boeing 777-200ER operated by Malaysia Airlines took off from Kuala Lumpur and turned toward Beijing, climbing to its assigned cruising altitude of 35,000 feet. ![]()
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