Final chapter in the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 draws to regretful close

In a final report, published October 2nd, on the unsuccessful search, Australian authorities deeply regret not finding missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 and describe the protracted mystery as “unacceptable”. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) states that: “It is almost inconceivable and certainly societally unacceptable in the modern aviation era … for a large commercial aircraft to be missing and for the world not to know with certainty what became of the aircraft and those on board.”
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared while on route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with 239 passengers and crew on board. After nearly three years of an extensive search, on January 17, 2017, the tripartite Ministers of Australia, Malaysia and China announced that as a consequence of decisions made at their July 2016 Ministerial Tripartite meeting in Putrajaya Malaysia, because the aircraft has not been located in the agreed search area, the search for MH370 had been suspended.
The report, The Operational Search for MH370, details the Australian work on the underwater search for the missing plane. According to the ATSB Chief Commissioner, Greg Hood, “This was an unprecedented endeavor and there has been an extraordinary response from the global community. There were contributions of expertise and resources from private business and organizations, agencies from different Governments, and from private individuals.”
The ATSB’s report has been accompanied by the release of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)’s final MH370 research report. The search for MH370 and ocean surface drift – Part IV confirms the effectiveness of the March-April 2014 surface search in key areas.
By the end of the search, which covered over 46,000 square miles and which involved the governments of Australia, China, Malaysia, the United States, the Republic of Korea, Japan, the United Kingdom and New Zealand, the bulk of the aircraft was never located, despite a number of items of debris being identified after being washed up on the coast of Africa and Indian Ocean islands off the African coast.