Ten years of mystery, but above all ten years of almost impossible mourning for the families of the victims.
On March 8, 2014, flight MH 370 disappeared over the Indian Ocean without leaving a trace.
Despite numerous investigations and research operations, it has never been possible to shed any light on this crash.
A documentary in six episodes, “MH 370, the missing truth”, is broadcast this Tuesday, January 23 on France 2, in which journalist Benoît Bringier followed relatives of the disappeared for several months.
We take stock of what we know about the investigation, a decade after the tragedy.
In what condition did the plane take off?
Malaysia Airlines flight MH 370 took off on March 8, 2014 at 12:41 a.m. local time from Kuala Lumpur airport (Malaysia) bound for Beijing (China).
On board this Boeing 777, there are 227 passengers and 12 crew members.
When the plane leaves Malaysian soil, it is scheduled to land in China at 6:30 a.m.
No meteorological disturbances are then to be reported.
While at an altitude of 35,000 feet (10,700 m), the plane left Malaysian airspace at 1:19 a.m.
It is about to enter Vietnamese airspace, it is then located above the Gulf of Thailand.
When was contact lost?
The plane's last radar contact was recorded at 1:21 a.m., 40 minutes after takeoff.
A minute later, the Boeing 777's transponder was cut.
Vietnamese air traffic control then asked a plane flying in the area at 1:30 a.m. to attempt voice contact with flight MH 370. But it never responded.
Other attempts to contact or locate the plane were unsuccessful and did not reveal the fate of the plane or the passengers.
It was at 7:24 a.m. that the airline announced in a press release that it had lost all contact with the plane.
The information was quickly picked up by local media, which began relaying the information at 8:30 a.m.
At this time, it is 2:30 a.m. in Paris, so it is in the morning news flashes that the disappearance of the flight is announced.
Have we found parts of the plane or victims?
No bodies have been found since 2014. All 239 people who were on board the flight are presumed dead.
Among them, 153 Chinese, 50 Malaysians (including 12 crew members), but also four French.
Several members of the family of Ghyslain Wattrelos, living near Dieppe (Seine-Maritime), are presumed missing in this crash: Laurence, his 51-year-old wife, and his two children Hadrien, 17, and Ambre, 14.
Hadrian's girlfriend was also present.
Many foreign nationals were also on board the flight: 7 Indonesians, 6 Australians, 3 Americans, 2 Canadians, 2 Iranians, 2 New Zealanders, 2 Ukrainians, as well as citizens of the Netherlands, Russia and Taiwan.
All those present on the plane at the time of the crash were pronounced dead on March 24, 2014.
Debris from the aircraft was discovered several months after the disappearance of the Boeing 777. The first was recovered on July 29, 2015 on a beach in Reunion.
Analyzed in Toulouse, the high-speed wing is formally authenticated as having belonged to the plane that disappeared in September.
Since then, other piecemeal debris has been found on the coasts of South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Madagascar and Mauritius.
Despite searches carried out for three years over a vast area of 120,000 km², it was impossible to precisely locate the remains of the plane and any remains.
The famous “black boxes” of the device were never found, which did not shed light on the circumstances of the crash for the families and authorities.
What are the hypotheses for the crash?
Following the investigation carried out by the Malaysian authorities, according to a report published in July 2018, it was not possible to determine with certainty the circumstances of the crash.
Four hypotheses were favored throughout the investigations: the technical incident, the hijacking, the terrorist act, or the intentional crash.
Investigators favor the possibility of a technical incident.
This includes the possibility of a fire on board, in-flight depressurization or even crew asphyxiation caused by the large number of lithium batteries present in the aircraft.
Another hypothesis seems likely according to the Malaysian authorities, that of a hijacking of the plane.
The report indicates that it was impossible to deny or confirm the presence of a third party in the cockpit.
This third party could have pushed the pilot to destroy the plane.
The hypothesis of a voluntary crash on the part of a pilot, a year before the Germanwings crash in the French Southern Alps, is also not ruled out by specialists, although the report from the Malaysian Ministry of Transport didn't hold her back.
Finally, the idea of a terrorist act, initially raised after the disappearance of the flight, could never be substantiated.