Just days after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 on March 8, 2014, several conspiracy theories emerged as to what might have happened to the plane.

The Boeing 777-200 was traveling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it vanished over the Indian Ocean. The plane was carrying 239 passengers and crew.

A massive search operation, headed by Australia, was launched to locate the plane. However, the search was called off years later and all those on board the plane were declared dead.

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By 2017, 20 pieces of aircraft debris had been discovered in the Indian Ocean, on the French territory of La Réunion, and on Mozambique, Madagascar, Mauritius, South Africa, and Tanzania.

While the authorities failed to explain the mystery behind the disappearance, theories from the plane being hijacked to the pilot’s murder-suicide mission emerged.

CRASHED IN THE SOUTHERN INDIAN OCEAN

Official investigators used analysis from British firm Inmarsat of “pings” to its satellite from MH370 to conclude the plane crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.

The Independent Group (IG) believes the plane is probably near the search zone, but not necessarily within it.

ACCIDENTALLY SHOT DOWN

London-based author Nigel Cawthorne said the plane may have been accidentally shot down during joint U.S.-Thai military exercises in the South China Sea. A similar incident took place when Korean Air flight 007 was shot down by the Soviet Union in 1983, and the U.S. Navy downed an Iranian airliner in 1988.

PLANE HIJACKED, TAKEN TO PAKISTAN 

A retired U.S. lieutenant general claimed the plane was hijacked and flown to Taliban-controlled Pakistan, to be used to carry weapons of mass destruction for an attack on Israel.

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PILOTS WERE INCAPACITATED 

Authorities believe that the plane was flying on autopilot as its pilots were either incapacitated or dead at the time of the crash. The plane may have later crashed into a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean after it ran out of fuel.

MURDER-SUICIDE

The most sought after theory was that Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah going rogue and deliberately crashing the plane in a murder-suicide mission. Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott also said that the plane have been in control of the pilot, who decided to kill everyone on board the plane.

“My very clear understanding from the very top levels of the Malaysian government is that from very, very early on here, they thought it was murder-suicide by the pilot,” Abbott said in 2020.

“I’m not going to say who said what to whom but let me reiterate, I want to be absolutely crystal clear, it was understood at the highest levels that this was almost certainly murder-suicide by the pilot — mass murder-suicide by the pilot.”