The Search for MH370

Abstract

At 17:22 UTC on 7th March 2014 Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 carrying 239 passengers and crew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing lost contact with Air Traffic Control and was subsequently reported missing. Over the following days an extensive air and sea search was made around the last reported location of the aircraft in the Gulf of Thailand without success. Subsequent analysis of signals transmitted by the aircraft's satellite communications terminal to Inmarsat's 3F1 Indian Ocean Region satellite indicated that the aircraft continued to fly for several hours after loss of contact, resulting in the search moving to the southern Indian Ocean. This paper presents an analysis of the satellite signals that resulted in the change of search area.