Featured Image Credit: Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto/Supian Ahmad/NurPhoto via Getty Images
The MH370 pilot’s final and chilling message before the Malaysia Airlines plane mysteriously vanished, becoming the world’s most unexplained aviation incident.
The last words by the pilot were revealed in a documentary ten years after the aircraft went missing mid flight in March 2014.
First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid was co-piloting the plane with Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah during the flight from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia, which was bound for Beijing Capital International Airport in China.
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However, the plane never made it to Beijing and instead disappeared without a trace, with all 239 onboard presumed dead.
It was a mystery that shocked the world, with many sharing different theories as to what could have happened.
Air traffic control last communicated with the pilots around 38 minutes after takeoff while the plane was flying over the South China Sea.
After losing connection, the Malaysian military’s primary radar system was able to track the plane for another hour as it deviated off its route, flying westward. Its last known location was in Vietnamese airspace.
There were initial fears that the disappearance could be down to a terrorist attack but when that was ruled out, other possibilities were circulated.
Some speculated that a fire had broken out in the cockpit or that the plane had been shot down.
Others wondered if the passengers were still alive after their cellphones picked up a dial tone when loved ones tried to call them.
Now, the final known words spoken on board have been revealed in the BBC documentary, Why Planes Vanish: The Hunt for MH370.
Around 12 minutes after the initial communication system went offline and just two minutes before the final transponder was deactivated, Mr Fariq was heard telling air traffic control, “alright, goodnight”.
The eerie message would be the last thing anyone heard from the aircraft which disappeared shortly after.
There has been some speculation that the flight’s disappearance could have been due to an act of mass murder-suicide by the plane’s captain, who was reported as supposedly having marriage problems.
Another theory is that the plane suffered a power interruption.
Other, less likely outcomes that some people have raised include the idea that the plane was consumed by a black hole or that a meteor struck the aircraft.
In 2017, pieces of debris that had washed up on beaches by the western Indian Ocean were identified as very likely or almost certainly originating from the missing aircraft.
