MH370 in Indian Ocean

MISSING\\ China demanded that Malaysia turn over the satellite data used to conclude that the Malaysia Airlines jetliner had crashed in the southern Indian Ocean, killing all 239 on board. Chinese officials narrowed the search area as a result of that assessment, but the zone remains as large as Texas and Oklahoma combined. The hunt for the plane is planned to resume on March 26, 2014, after gale-force winds and heavy rain forced a daylong delay. Searchers face a daunting task of combing a vast expanse of choppy seas for suspected remnants of the aircraft sighted earlier. Boeing 777 had gone down in the sea with no survivors. But that is all that investigators and the Malaysian government have been able to say with certainty about Flight 370’s fate since it disappeared on March 8 shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing.

Left unanswered are many troubling questions about why it was so far offcourse— the plane essentially back-tracked its route over Malaysia and then traveled in the opposite direction in the Indian Ocean. Investigators will be looking at possibilities including possible mechanical or electrical failure, hijacking, sabotage, terrorism or issues related to the mental health of the pilots or someone else on board. The incident has unleashed a storm of sorrow and anger among the families of the 239 passengers and crew—two-thirds of them Chinese.