Mystery of MH370 to go on, as Australia issues final report

Nobody knows what really happened.

What happened to flight MH370? Hypothesis abound, but evidence is scant. We won't get answers soon either, at least not from the Australian government which has just issued its final report on the search.

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) - The Australian government has admitted they don't know what happened to MH370. After three years of searching, they do not know anything more than what was known on the eve of the plane's disappearance.

Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, a Boeing 777 carrying 239 souls, disappeared on a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Bejing, China. Air traffic control tracked the flight normally, until it made a series of sudden turns, and flew to the southwest. Its transponder was disconnected. After that, the plane was virtually impossible to track. The last time it appeared on radar, it was flying Northeast toward the Nicobar Islands, 230 miles west of Malaysian coast.

Experts later calculated the plane must have turned south, flying until it ran out of fuel and crashing into the southern Indian ocean, about eight hours later.

While the analysis that placed the plane in the southern Indian ocean was quite technical, it was supported by several pieces of evidence, including satellite data and small parts of the plane which eventually washed up on island beaches off the coast of east Africa. Those debris could not have washed up where they did unless the plane went down in the southern Indian Ocean.

However, a detailed survey of the sea bed revealed absolutely nothing. No wreckage, or anything to suggest the plane crashed and sank in the area indicated by the evidence.

So what happened?

Nobody knows. There are two leading hypothesis. The first is that a fire caused the crew to be rendered unconscious. At the first sign of smoke in the cockpit, the captain would have turned the plane towards the nearest available airfield. He might not speak because he is concentrating on flying an imperiled aircraft. Overcome before he is able to issue a distress signal, the plane is lost. The fire extinguished itself, and the plane was able to fly level, or may have climbed, then descended slowly over the next eight hours. Running out of fuel, it crashed into the ocean, at a place that was never surveyed. The plane was found to be a carrying a cargo of lithium-ion batteries, which are known to start fires.

Another hypothesis is that it was suicide. The captain had marital problems at home and had practiced flying a similar route to the one taken by the lost plane. At some point, he could have climbed the aircraft above its service altitude, causing all on board to lose consciousness as the air pressure dropped. Everyone on board lost consciousness and died without adequate air.

Other theories involve conspiracies such as the U.S. government seizing the plane and flying to to a secure location for future use in a false flag, terrorist operation. Such notions strain credulity.

All we know at the moment is that nobody knows.

The report from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau stated: "It is almost inconceivable and certainly societally unacceptable in the modern aviation era with 10 million passengers boarding commercial aircraft every day, 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."

The report includes condolences, "The ATSB expresses our deepest sympathies to the families of the passengers and crew on board MH370. We share your profound and prolonged grief, and deeply regret that we have not been able to locate the aircraft, nor those 239 souls on board that remain missing."

There will be no more official searches for the missing plane, unless extraordinary evidence comes to light to indicate where it is. Private expeditions are possible, but unlikely since there is no incentive sufficient to justify the likely expense. The most likely possibility would arise from future incidental discovery as missions to map the sea floor for various reasons are undertaken.