Selects: The Disappearance of Flight MH370, Part I

Summary

Podcast Summary: Stuff You Should Know - Selects: The Disappearance of Flight MH370, Part I

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Introduction

In the August 9, 2025 episode of Stuff You Should Know, hosted by Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant under the umbrella of iHeartPodcasts, the duo delves into one of the most perplexing aviation mysteries of the 21st century: the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370. This two-part series meticulously examines the events, investigations, and prevailing theories surrounding the vanishing of the flight, which remains unsolved despite exhaustive searches.

“This is stuff you should know about one of the most interesting mysteries in modern times.” – Josh Clark [02:25]

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Background of Flight MH370

Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China. On March 8, 2014, the Boeing 777-200ER took off with 227 passengers and 12 crew members aboard. Approximately seven minutes after takeoff, the flight deviated from its planned route, leading to a series of puzzling events that culminated in the plane's disappearance.

“The missing airliner MH370 is Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.” – Josh Clark [02:25]

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Timeline of Events

1. Takeoff and Initial Communication

   • 00:42 AM: The flight took off from Kuala Lumpur airport, slightly delayed from its scheduled departure.
   • 00:58 AM: Captain Zahari Ahmad Shah communicates with Kuala Lumpur Air Traffic Control (ATC), confirming the cruising altitude of 35,000 feet.

   “By the way, we're still at 35,000ft.” – Captain Zahari [09:06]

2. Transition Between Airspaces

   • 01:19 AM: As MH370 approached Ho Chi Minh City’s airspace, the flight was handed off from Kuala Lumpur ATC to Ho Chi Minh ATC.
   • Two Minutes Later: Captain Zahari made an unusual transmission stating, “Good night, Malaysian370,” rather than the standard protocol response to confirm the new frequency.

   “Good night, Malaysian370.” – Captain Zahari [10:07]

3. Loss of Radar Tracking

   • 01:21 AM: Just two minutes after the last communication, MH370 vanished from Ho Chi Minh’s radar screens without any distress signals or further communication.
   • 18 Minutes Later: Ho Chi Minh ATC contacts Kuala Lumpur, raising alarms that the flight had disappeared.

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Key Players: Pilots and Crew

• Captain Zahari Ahmad Shah: An experienced pilot in his 50s, serving Malaysia Airlines for over two decades.
• First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid: A relatively new pilot, this flight marked his final training before certification as a Boeing 777 pilot.

“Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah is piloting the plane. First Officer Hamid. This is his last training flight.” – Joshua Clark [08:09]

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Disappearance: Radar and Communication Anomalies

The disappearance of MH370 is unique in aviation history as it is the only major airliner considered to have simply vanished without a trace. Unlike other incidents where wreckage or black boxes were found, MH370 remains elusive, primarily due to failures in radar tracking and communication:

• Secondary Radar Failure: The transponder, responsible for sending detailed flight information, was turned off, making the plane disappear from secondary radar.

• Primary Radar Loss: While primary radar continued to track the plane for about an hour post-disappearance, lack of actionable data and delays in communication hindered immediate response efforts.

“Whenever any airliner goes down, everyone in the international community comes together, investigates it. They do so openly.” – Josh Clark [04:35]

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Inmarsat Satellite Data and Analysis

In the absence of conventional tracking, investigators turned to satellite data provided by Inmarsat, a British satellite telecommunications company. This analysis was pivotal in determining the possible flight path of MH370:

1. Satellite Data Unit (SDU): The plane’s SDU communicated with Inmarsat’s satellites, providing intermittent pings that were analyzed to estimate the aircraft's location.

2. Burst Timing Offset (BTO) and Burst Frequency Offset (BFO): These measurements helped establish seven possible arcs indicating where the plane could have flown.

“After air France Flight 447, this is when Inmarsat really kind of beefed up their system.” – Josh Clark [26:08]

3. Final Pings and Crash Location: The last confirmed satellite communication suggested that the aircraft continued flying for several hours before likely crashing into the Southern Indian Ocean.

“Inmarsat is now saying, wait a minute, this thing didn't crash, like an hour and a half after takeoff, this thing turned around and flew into the Indian Ocean for six or seven more hours.” – Josh Clark [26:07]

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Leading Theory: Deliberate Disappearance

The predominant theory explored in Part I posits that someone on board deliberately altered the flight path:

• Transponder Deactivation: The sudden switch-off of the transponder and subsequent lack of communication suggests intentional action.

• Abrupt Turn: The plane made a sharp turn southwest, inconsistent with autopilot behavior, indicating human control.

• Depressurization and Hypoxia: Speculated to have occurred intentionally to incapacitate passengers while maintaining control of the aircraft.

“Someone on board took control of the plane, disabled that transponder, and then started flying in the other direction back across Malaysia.” – Jerry [37:01]

“That transponder going off at the exact moment when the plane transitioned from Kuala Lumpur's airspace into Ho Chi Minh. It would be an incredible coincidence if that was just an incredible coincidence.” – Josh Clark [37:38]

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Conclusion of Part I

Part I of the episode concludes by summarizing the intricate analysis of satellite data and the compelling evidence pointing towards a deliberate disappearance orchestrated by someone with the knowledge and capability to disable critical systems and alter the flight path. The hosts hint at further exploration of other theories and unanswered questions in Part II, leaving listeners eagerly anticipating the continuation of this investigative journey.

“All from seven little pings between the plane and the satellite.” – Jerry [45:32]

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Notable Quotes

• “The missing airliner MH370 is Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.” – Josh Clark [02:25]

• “Good night, Malaysian370.” – Captain Zahari [10:07]

• “Someone on board took control of the plane, disabled that transponder, and then started flying in the other direction back across Malaysia.” – Jerry [37:01]

• “All from seven little pings between the plane and the satellite.” – Jerry [45:32]

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Final Thoughts

The disappearance of MH370 remains a haunting mystery, shrouded in unanswered questions and enigmatic satellite data. Stuff You Should Know offers a thorough and engaging examination of the events and theories surrounding this tragedy, providing listeners with a comprehensive understanding of this unresolved aviation enigma. As Josh and Chuck navigate through the complexities of radar technologies, international protocols, and human factors, they shed light on why MH370 stands as a singular case in aviation history.

“It's the greatest unsolved mystery in aviation history since the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and poor Fred Noonan.” – Josh Clark [01:09]

For those intrigued by aviation mysteries and the interplay of technology and human action, this episode serves as an enlightening exploration into one of the most baffling disappearances in modern times.

Transcript

[Josh Clark]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[Jerry]

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[Josh Clark]

Hey everybody, it's me, Josh. And for this week's select, I've chosen our two part episode on the disappearance of MH370 from back in January 2020. It is the greatest unsolved mystery in aviation history since the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and poor Fred Noonan. Which is really saying something. It's astounding that with a decade of exhaustive time and attention, the plane still hasn't been found. Maybe someday when we're mapping the entire seafloor of the Indian Ocean, we'll stumble across it. Who knows? But until then, enjoy this harrowing mystery episode of Stuff youf Should Know. Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there. And this is stuff you should know about one of the most interesting mysteries in modern times. Yeah, like it's really tough to get across. What a mystery. The missing airliner MH370 is Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.

[Jerry]

Yeah, and this is going to be a two parter because it's pretty robust. And boy, hats off to the grabster. He really put together a lot of great research for this one he did.

[Josh Clark]

I also want to give a huge shout out to one of my journalistic heroes, William Langweisch. He wrote something. He writes in the Atlantic, but he's not just an Atlantic writer. He wrote what really happened to Malaysia's missing airplane. Big old long article on it.

[Jerry]

Those are great.

[Josh Clark]

And this guy is an aviation expert to begin with, but he's also. Have you ever read a Tom Wolfe book or article or whatever? He has a really great knack for making you feel like you're there in the action.

[Jerry]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But then he also has a knack for making you step back and think, how does Tom Wolfe know all this? Was he there? William Languish is the same way.

[Jerry]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And I will. I will go ahead and recommend that you not, unless you are a very courageous person, read any of his work, especially the stuff about airline disasters, anytime around when you're flying, because he puts you in that plane when it's going down or whatever. He's really, really good at it. So I recommend basically anything Lang Weis has written, go read. It's worth it, for sure.

[Jerry]

Yeah. And I think this, coupled with the brief times that we've touched on this kind of thing in the past, whether it was DB Cooper or Bermuda Triangle, there's something about aviation disasters and mysteries that are really intriguing to me. And airline forensics. It's all. Rick, just super, super interesting.

[Josh Clark]

It is. So you talked about airline forensics and that kind of stuff. This is lousy with it. But the reason I was saying, why, it's tough to overstate, like, what a mystery MH370 is. It's the only airliner that is considered disappeared, vanished. They know where all the other ones are. They know what happened to all the other ones. It's the only major one that is just where the official investigation said, we don't know.

[Jerry]

Yeah. I mean. And, you know, in part two, we'll get to a pretty good. Well, actually, I think the leading theory comes in this episode, but we kind of think we know, but it's that thing where, like, you can't definitively say.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, you can't say where and you can't say why.

[Jerry]

Right. Yeah. Then the why and the where are both really confounding.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And the reason why air travel in the 21st century is way safer than auto travel is because anytime an airliner goes down, everyone in the international community comes together, investigates it. They do so openly. The airline, the airplane manufacturer, everyone involved is expected to tell the truth. And you get it out there and you figure out what went wrong and then you make things safer. And then that makes air travel safer for everybody. They couldn't do this for all sorts of reasons with MH370. And so it's a huge failing among the international community, not for lack of trying, but because it's just an asterisk out there. It's the only one.

[Jerry]

Yeah. And that's why airplanes don't crash as much anymore. I mean, growing up, it's not like it was every other week or anything, but you used to hear about airline crashes enough to where it gave you pause and you just don't hear about it much anymore.

[Josh Clark]

It's true. Thankfully, it's still out there for sure.

[Jerry]

Yeah. But they seem much more rare than they used to be. Kind of like skyjackings.

[Josh Clark]

So we'll do our best to put you in the plane.

[Jerry]

In the passenger seat.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Jerry]

Can we at least be in business class?

[Josh Clark]

Buckle. Sure.

[Jerry]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Jerry]

Were you about to say buckle up?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Okay. Buckle up because we're gonna take off on March 8, 2014 in Kuala Lumpur. It's the very beginning of March 8. The takeoff schedule for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing was scheduled for 12:35am that's right.

[Jerry]

We're in a Boeing 777, 200er.

[Josh Clark]

Yep.

[Jerry]

And there are 227 fellow passengers aboard, 12 flight crew.

[Josh Clark]

Yep.

[Jerry]

That's a lot of people.

[Josh Clark]

Almost about two thirds of the passengers are Chinese nationals. I believe there's a bunch of other people from other countries. But for the bulk of the. The people on the plane were from China.

[Jerry]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

And it's a late night flight. It's expected to arrive in Beijing at about 6:00', clock, 6:30 6:30 in Beijing time. And it's going to fly over the South China Sea, over the Gulf of Thailand, through Laos, Vietnam and then into China to arrive at Beijing. It didn't actually take off at 12:35. They took off at 12:42. Not too shabby. Seven minutes. I'm not like sitting there rocking in my seat like, let's go yet. I might not have even noticed. And they take off and it flies up to 18,000ft. And the air traffic control center at Kuala Lumpur says, hey, you guys are cleared to go up to 35,000ft, which is cruising altitude for this flight.

[Jerry]

I think that's right. And at this point, at 18,000, they switch from the airport's air traffic to Kuala Lumpur area control center. And the Reason we're mentioning all these details is because it turns out they're very important.

[Josh Clark]

Very important.

[Jerry]

Yeah. So these are all key.

[Josh Clark]

Keep rewinding 15, 30 seconds to get every single detail. Okay. Because you're gonna need them for the big finish.

[Jerry]

So four minutes later, like you said, they were cleared to go to 35,000. Took them about 15 minutes. And it's here where Captain Zahari and there were two people on board flying this plane. Captain Zahari and. What was the other gentleman's name?

[Josh Clark]

First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid.

[Jerry]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

And Captain Zahari Ahmad Shah is piloting the plane. First Officer Hamid. This is his last training flight. After this, he'll be fully certified to fly Boeing 777s, which, if you're a commercial airline pilot, that's pretty much the peak right there.

[Jerry]

Yeah. And that's important, too, because one of them is a very experienced pilot in his 50s. The other one is a brand new kind of greenhorn. And that's going to factor in for sure.

[Josh Clark]

Yep.

[Jerry]

So like I said, it took about 15 minutes to get to 35,000ft. And this is when the lead pilot radios that Kuala Lumpur Control center says, we're at 35,000ft. Then seven minutes later, he radios again and says, by the way, and this is not me doing him. I don't know what he sounded like.

[Josh Clark]

Kuala Lumpur. There you go. This is Captain Zahari. Everybody sounds like Chuck Yeager.

[Jerry]

Yeah, I guess so.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Jerry]

So he confirmed again that they were at 35,000ft. And this is where Ed points out that this wasn't some sort of big alarming thing. But what usually happens is you radio in when you leave an altitude, not when you arrive. And you also don't radio in seven minutes later and say, by the way, we're still at 35,000ft.

[Josh Clark]

Still here.

[Jerry]

Like, once you hit it, you're just sort of there. That's your cruising altitude.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So it's. It wasn't alarming or anything, but it was weird that he made those two radio transmissions. But there was nothing compared to the weirdness that was about to take place.

[Jerry]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

Shortly after that, I think at 1:19am yeah. Kuala Lumpur Area Control Center.

[Jerry]

It's like 11 minutes later.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. Said, hey, MH370, you're about to leave our jurisdiction and enter Ho Chi Minh's jurisdiction. Go ahead and contact Ho Chi Minh Air Traffic Control and let them know you are with them on this frequency.

[Jerry]

Yeah, I mean, if you remember our air Traffic control podcast, you're handed off like, you don't just stick with one air traffic control when you fly around the world.

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Jerry]

You're handed off all along the way whenever you enter the airspace of that whatever district.

[Josh Clark]

Precisely. And the way that it's set up is there's not supposed to be any time where you're just flying alone and then you move into the other one. You're going right from one to the other.

[Jerry]

You want a handoff.

[Josh Clark]

So Captain Zaharie responded with, Good night, Malaysian 3, 7, 0. Those are the last words anyone heard from Captain Zahari as far as we know. And that in and of itself was kind of an odd transmission because typically any airline captain would have replied with the frequency. We said the frequency back to confirm that that was the right one. But instead, all he said was, Good night, Malaysian370. And very shortly after that, two minutes later, MH370 disappeared from the radar. The moment it showed up on Ho Chi Minh Air Traffic Control's radar screens, it just vanished.

[Jerry]

Right. Without ever having made contact with them via radio frequency.

[Josh Clark]

This should have, like, set off alarms with Ho Chi Minh City. And apparently they did notice. Kuala Lumpur didn't notice. The guy was. They had all this other air traffic to deal with.

[Jerry]

Yeah. And they were out of their zone at this point.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. And he'd said good night. And, you know, everybody knows good night. You can't go back on that. You have to wait until tomorrow to make contact again. So Kuala Lumpur is, I don't know about blameless in this, but certainly less blameful than Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh and Ho Chi Minh noticed that they just disappeared from the screen. But it took them a full 18 minutes before they called Kuala Lumpur and said, hey, do you know anything about where MH370 is? Because they kind of vanished from our radar.

[Jerry]

Yeah. Like, I don't know the exact process. In their defense, they were trying to get in touch. It's not like they just said, well, we'll see what happens. They got in touch with another pilot who was nearby in that airspace to contact them. And this pilot reported there was interference and static. I heard mumbling on the other end, but that's the last we heard. And we lost connection.

[Josh Clark]

Right. We're not even sure if he was talking to the right people.

[Jerry]

Yeah. So, I mean, they were trying to get in touch, but you're right. I think, like, sooner than 18 minutes, they should have said, by the way, this plane that just left your airspace has disappeared. Like, do you know what's going on?

[Josh Clark]

Right. Protocol international protocol was five minutes. Okay, so they waited 13 minutes longer than protocol dictated. And it was so much beyond when they should have called that the controller in Kuala Lumpur actually said on the record, like, why didn't you call me sooner? How are you just calling me about this?

[Jerry]

It's like, that may as well have been yesterday.

[Josh Clark]

Right? It's missing for 18 minutes, which as we'll get to later on, stuff that came up in the investigation that was just the first step in a series of missteps that led to the reason why MH370 may never be found.

[Jerry]

Yeah. So should we take a little break and talk about Radar?

[Josh Clark]

Radar? O'Reilly.

[Jerry]

We'll be back right after this.

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[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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[Jerry]

Radar O'Reilly, not Radar O'Reilly. Radar used by air traffic control. It's different. It is different than Radar O'Reilly. This is called secondary radar. And it sends out a little beam that it's very narrow and it sweeps the area. And onboard the aircraft, they have a transponder that detects this beam and sends their own signal back that says, this is how fast we're going. This is where we're headed. And a code that says, and this is who I am.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, maybe even MH370. As simple as that. Something like that.

[Jerry]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

That's what's supposed to show up on air traffic control's radar screen. So they can see, oh, here's MH370 coming toward DL 1722 or whatever @ this speed. Right? Yeah. They have all this information and that's called secondary radar. Primary radar is what you think where it's like, you know, it's a blip on a screen that this big radar ray is bouncing off of and receiving information back from. But it's just, you see, it's physically there. This has far more information. And that's why air traffic control around the world uses.

[Jerry]

Right. And this is very key because just a few seconds after it made that switch over into Ho Chi Minh's airspace, the transponder stopped sending information. That transponder, that's supposed to say who you are, where you are and how fast you're going, just stopped.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Jerry]

It vanished. And this is when the ball was dropped by a little bit by Kuala Lumpur not noticing, and definitely by Ho Chi Minh not doing anything immediately in response to Kuala Lumpur.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So primary radar, the radar that you typically think of when you think of radar, there are very few places in the world where you can't be tracked by someone on radar. It's fairly old technology. It's been around for a while. But the places where you can't be tracked can be vast. Over the ocean, in the desert, over extremely mountainous or wooded areas. There are places where you can't really put a radar tower and you can disappear from radar. Right. I think what I'm trying to say here is if you take your plane out of radar range and you turn off your transponder, you can make a modern airliner as big as a 777 vanish where people don't know where it is. And that's a really, I think, hallmark point or trait to this mystery that kind of like gets people a little unnerved is, wait a minute, like, this is the 21st century. This happened in 2014.

[Jerry]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

What do you mean? There's times and situations where an airliner can disappear and people don't know where it is. Yeah, and that was the situation. And as Ho Chi Minh City and Kuala Lumpur are starting to scramble to try to figure out, you know, where this is, apparently they called Malaysian Airlines and said, hey, do you know anything about MH370? Malaysian Airlines said, oh, yeah, they're flying over Cambodia right now. And they're like, where? What are you. How are you seeing this after an hour? Finally, Malaysian Airlines is like, no, we're just referring to the flight plan. They should be over Cambodia right now. What do you mean you can't find them? What's going on?

[Jerry]

Yeah, but because of that primary radar, the secondary radar wasn't functioning like we said, because the transponder was off. But the primary radar did track them for about an hour after those communications dropped because the Malaysian military was able to track it with the primary radar.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, apparently it flew through the primary radar of five different countries, and the only one that bothered to track it was Malaysia's Air Force. Yeah, but they didn't do anything about it. They didn't follow up to see who it was. They didn't scramble any jets to go see if everybody was okay or they just knew that there was an unidentified plane flying through Malaysian airspace and the Air Force didn't do anything about it. This is embarrassing enough that the Air Force didn't reveal this to anybody for a while, which was a really important point because during this time, about an hour, about an hour and a half after the takeoff and an hour after the thing disappeared from transponders, the Malaysian Air force was tracking MH370. And it fell. Saw that it seemed to have taken.

[Jerry]

A Turn, Yeah, I mean, they know what happened at this point for a little while. It made a sharp turn.

[Josh Clark]

That was not part of the planned flight plan.

[Jerry]

No, not at all. This is where things definitely took a metaphorical and literal turn. Yeah, it headed southwest at that point, crossed over the Malay Peninsula, over Malaysia again, and then parts of Thailand. Then it made a right turn. This is very key, near the island of Penang. Just put a pin in that. Then headed west by northwest toward the Andaman Sea. And then at 2:22am, vanished from radar. From that primary radar as well.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So the Malaysian Air Force saw this happen on its radar. It didn't tell anybody for a while. The flight plan had it leaving Malaysia, crossing over the Strait of Malacca into the peninsula where Thailand is located, into China. Right. Just away from Malaysia. From what the Malaysian Air Force saw, this thing doubled back on itself and then went in some totally different directions, almost the opposite direction it was supposed to be going in. And like you said, it dropped off of the radar. And that was the last time anyone saw it on radar. But that's not the last time we were able to track MH370, and that's thanks to a satellite network that's run by an outfit called Inmarsat.

[Jerry]

Yeah. So Inmarsat, if you've ever been on a plane and you've enjoyed the benefits of watching movies, streaming, or connected to your computer via WI fi, that is because of satellite communication. These airplanes are equipped with a system and it transfers data and all their voice communications via satellite. And some of this data from the plane is automatically shared with these ground tracking stations, which is a really big deal. So not only are they letting you watch movies and doing all that, but it's sending this automatic data on the reg basically from that satellite to these ground stations.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So they think by this time. Actually, I believe they know by this time, MH370's navigational systems, entertainment systems, a bunch of its systems have been turned off. The only thing that was still operating was this satellite link, I guess. Beacon.

[Jerry]

Yeah, it's called a satellite data unit.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, so the satellite data unit, which was capable of contacting and receiving contact from the Mr. Satellites. Now, at the time, no one knows that this is happening, Right? Like, there's no sound being made, there's nobody tracking this. This all came out much later when Inmarset realized they were sitting on a bunch of data. But during different points over the next six, seven hours, the satellite and the satellite data unit talked to each other under a few different Circumstances. And because of this, this company, Inmarsat, which is located in or headquartered in Great Britain, but literally covers the globe not just with airline stuff, but maritime thing, which I think where they were originally, they were originally founded to do, is to enable maritime communications, like, you know, satellite phone. You're calling through Inmarsat.

[Jerry]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So they've got this whole constellation of satellites. And when InMarsat heard about MH370, they were like, I'll bet our satellites were tracking this thing in some way, shape or form. And it turns out that they were. Right.

[Jerry]

Yeah. And there's four, and this is important here, there's four different ways or circumstances where that satellite data unit on the plane is communicating with the satellite in space. Whenever you're making a data transmission or a voice transmission, whenever someone on the ground tries to contact the plane, there's something that happens every hour. If no one has made either one of these contacts for an hour, you get a check in called a handshake that's just like, you're still here. Shake hands, buddy.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Just want to make sure you're logged on. It's kind of like when you watch too much Netflix, and Netflix sends a message saying, you're still there. Yeah. Have you finished all the tub of cookie dough yet?

[Jerry]

Yeah. And then it has a thing that says, go outside.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Jerry]

Or actually it doesn't. It says, watch another one.

[Josh Clark]

Why not watch some more? Why not have some more cookie dough? It's the same thing. It's sending a message to the planes satellite data unit saying, like, just, are you still logged on?

[Jerry]

Right. And then the final thing, and this is super key, is whenever the, whenever you first log on to the satellite system, that thing on the plane, whenever it kind of checks in and links up, that is very key. Because what can also happen if that thing goes down and then reboots, it treats that as a new login. So it'll make another ping, basically that it's logged onto the system.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So Inmarsat goes back and looks at their data and says, okay, so here's a couple of things right now. This is, I think within the first, like few days, everybody is looking in the South China Sea for MH370, because that was what was along its flight plan. The Malaysian Air Force hasn't revealed yet that it tracked MH370, turn around and go the opposite direction of what its flight plan was, where it was scheduled to carry it.

[Jerry]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And Inmarsat is now saying, wait a minute, this thing didn't crash, like an hour and a half after takeoff, this thing turned around and flew into the Indian Ocean for six or seven more hours, because our satellite was talking to the plane at various points during this time.

[Jerry]

Yeah. And we should point out, too, after air France Flight 447, which crashed in 2009, this is when Inmarsat really kind of beefed up their system. They added more ground stations and they added a lot more capability to add storage for this data because they know that this can really help out in situations like this.

[Josh Clark]

That was a big one, too. Do you remember that one?

[Jerry]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So that one was the first one that really opened people's eyes where it was like, wait a minute, when we're flying over the ocean, like, no one knows where we are.

[Jerry]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And they were like, no, actually, not really. And I think that's why Inmarsat was like, we gotta build more ground stations. We gotta bulk up our data storage, all that stuff. We've gotta add more satellite capabilities. And in doing so, they made it so that you could be tracked when you're over the ocean, even if you didn't wanna be, as seems to have been the case with MH370. So it was a huge difference between 2004, was it 2004-2009-2009-2009 and 2014. Just five years. The thing proved itself. These upgrades they made were subst. But air France Flight 447, in and of itself another language gem that just puts you in the seat of this terrifying plane crash. That one in particular. They knew where the plane was and it still took two years to recover the black boxes and figure out what went wrong.

[Jerry]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Which is terrifying. And if you know what happened to that one, Basically, the controls got ripped away from the pilot and it just went right into the ocean.

[Jerry]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And they're still down there. Apparently. There was a big debate over what to do with these people when they started raising them. They were perfectly preserved because they're so deep in the pressure and the anaerobic situation. Yeah. The temperature just kept them perfectly preserved. But as they were raised up into warmer waters, the decomposition over two years just happened immediately. So I think the French government said they have to stay there. It's now a memorial. Do not try to raise anybody. And they're still down there strapped to their seats.

[Jerry]

Jeez.

[Josh Clark]

Which, when you just do not think about that the next time you get on a plane.

[Jerry]

I know.

[Josh Clark]

It's a terrible thing to think about, I can tell you firsthand. Yeah.

[Jerry]

You've gotten so much better over the years, but I'm sure this is gonna be a setback.

[Josh Clark]

No, I'm hanging in there. All right, good. Yeah. If it happens, it happens. That's the way I kind of view it.

[Jerry]

Well, there's certainly nothing you can do about it.

[Josh Clark]

This isn't something that they. That you guys are going to play in my memorial, my funeral, my last words. But if I go down in a plane crash, my number was up.

[Jerry]

Right. And everyone else would be like, that's so weird. He always talked about it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, right.

[Jerry]

This was his worst beer.

[Josh Clark]

He was such a freak. There was actually. I had a tweet once. It said, if I ever go down in a plane crash, I'm going to shout. I wish I would have spent more time at work.

[Jerry]

I'm not sure I get that.

[Josh Clark]

Well, you know, it's like no one ever says in their deathbed they wish they'd spent more time at work.

[Jerry]

Well, I got it. An ironic funny on the way down.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I'll make people laugh.

[Jerry]

Good for you.

[Josh Clark]

Give them their last laugh.

[Jerry]

So this where they're getting all this information was from a ground station in Perth, Australia, a place we have been to. It was quite lovely.

[Josh Clark]

Lovely town.

[Jerry]

That's right. It was great. Anyone ever tells you, don't go to Western Australia. You tell them that's BS Because Josh and Chuck said it's great.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. All right, Barry. Stupid. That's what BS stands for.

[Jerry]

So they had a lot of data, like we said, because they had beefed up their storage capabilities over the past five or six years. And they have a couple of types of data, something called burst timing offset. And burst frequency offset. BTO is. It measures how long a signal takes to reach a satellite. You know, the speed of the signal, so you know exactly how far that plane is from the satellite at that exact moment. It's very easy to kind of understand.

[Josh Clark]

Right. First taken into account, Inmarsat has. Oh, here was a. Here was a ping. Here was a ping, Here was a ping, Here's a ping.

[Jerry]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

Now they're digging in to analyze these pings and just the quality of them, the timing of them, all this stuff. Because they are like, I'm pretty sure we can figure out where this plane was and maybe where it went if we really drill in and do some incredible math and figure out just kind of the nature of these pings.

[Jerry]

Yeah. And what they're trying to do here is to narrow it down into an arc instead of a circle.

[Josh Clark]

Well, I think that's just naturally what happened. Oh, yeah, you're right. You're right. I'm sorry.

[Jerry]

Because Ed explained it in a very easy way. If you tell someone, hey, I'm 100 miles from Atlanta, then you draw a circle around Atlanta that's 100 miles. And you could be at any point along that circle. But if that phone call was from Athens, which is not 100 miles from Atlanta, but it's. It's not too far, 65 or so. But if you said you're from some other city in Georgia, then you would.

[Josh Clark]

Know where you were.

[Jerry]

And if you knew how fast they were going, then you could really. It doesn't become a circle, then it becomes an arc.

[Josh Clark]

Right. The number of points on that circle where that person could possibly be.

[Jerry]

Yes. Is smaller.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, much smaller. Maybe by half, maybe by two thirds. And yet. So the circle becomes an arc. And because of that burst timing offset, they could establish those arcs. And there were seven of them, I believe.

[Jerry]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

No, they could establish the circles because of the other one, the bfo. The bfo, the burst frequency offset. Those are more complicated. They involve the Doppler effect and basically tell the satellite, or the satellite data tells Inmarsat, we're going in this direction. Because the Doppler effect, when an ambulance siren is coming to you and then it passes you. Right. It changes in pitch because of the relative distance and the direction that it's traveling. They could tell from this ping, the satellite ping, not even a date of transmission, just a ping, which direction the thing was headed and roughly how fast it was going. And so they were able to create seven arcs. And after the seven arcs, the seventh arc was created by a ping that took place at 8:19am and after that there was another. There was a logon request, a handshake request that the SDU failed to respond to. And they think that in between 8:19am and that last logon request, at 9:15am the plane finally crashed, probably from running out of fuel.

[Jerry]

Yeah. And they think the 819 was from one of those reboots that I was talking about. When that system comes back on. Which will come after power failure.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Which will come into play pretty soon.

[Jerry]

All right, so let's take another break here.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Jerry]

All right, we'll be back with the leading theory right after this.

[Josh Clark]

Time.

[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

The reviews and ratings are in and Ice Cube's Big Three is the surprise hit of the summer this Saturday, 4pm Eastern on CBS, with playoff elimination on the line, the stars will be flocking to Los Angeles to witness the most physical, fiercest and competitive basketball in the world. Miami's Michael Beasley and Lance Stevenson must win over Houston to make the playoffs. Reeling from last week's savage beating at the hands of Chicago possessed Montrez Hero last time these teams met, Miami beat Houston, but they are a dangerous team having their manhood at stake. Then breakout star Dwight Howard of the LA Riot will battle Gary Payton's Boston squad in a do or die match for both teams. Will LA avenge their previous shocking loss to perennial basketball Boston rivals? To survive, six teams are allowed for four spots and all must win. Don't miss the Big Three, the three on three basketball league everyone is talking about. There's no crying in the big three and the no holds spot action starts Saturday at 4pm Eastern, 1pm Pacific followed by two games on Vice starting at 6:30 Eastern. Presented by iHeart.

[Robert Lamb]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Now through August 26th, it's back to Deals time where you can enjoy storewide deals and earn four times points. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible items from Hershey's, Cheez It, Kellogg's, Gatorade, Smart Water, Skinny Pop, Oberto, Zoa and Activia. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Shop in store or online for easy drive up and go pick or delivery subject to availability restrictions apply. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.

[Jerry]

All right, so the leading theory and this is the more I read this, the more it was Occam's Razor kind of staring you in the face.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Jerry]

Because we'll get into some of the kind of cockamamie theories, and there are many of them, but this one is the simplest, and it's probably what happened.

[Josh Clark]

It's the one, I believe it is.

[Jerry]

That someone on board and should we tease this out?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Jerry]

Okay. Someone on board took control of the plane, disabled that transponder, and then started flying in the other direction back across Malaysia. Then put it on autopilot until it ran out of gas and it crashed into the ocean.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. About the Southern Indian Ocean, which is where the Southern 7th Arc was.

[Jerry]

Right. One of the reasons this makes a lot of sense is because that transponder going off at the exact moment when the plane transitioned from Kuala Lumpur's airspace into Ho Chi Minh. It would be an incredible coincidence if that was just an incredible coincidence, that.

[Josh Clark]

In and of itself says that there was a human factor involved.

[Jerry]

Like someone knew what that meant.

[Josh Clark]

Right, exactly. So somebody who knew how to do that, when to do it, and the timing of it was just too spectacular for it to have been an accident.

[Jerry]

Yeah. Because what they probably counted on is exactly what happened was there was a period of time they might have figured five minutes, which is what you said the standard was. But what they got was 18 minutes of confusion. I mean, it tripled what they were counting on.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly.

[Jerry]

Best case scenario.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. The other thing was that the turn that the MH370 made was so abrupt that autopilot wouldn't have done that.

[Jerry]

No.

[Josh Clark]

If you put a plane on autopilot and have it and it turns, it would make a much wider turn. This is a hard kind of backtracking turn that it made to its left to the southwest from the north, traveling the northeast. The turn was to the southwest. So just the turn alone, which came after the transponder was turned off, shows that it was under human control. It was a person piloting the plane, making it turn like that.

[Jerry]

Right. And that rules out things like mechanical failure or fire.

[Josh Clark]

Everything from meteor strike to squall line, pretty much any kind of weather. All that is ruled out by the fact that this turn took place clearly under human control.

[Jerry]

Right. That also rules out hypoxia. If you remember the very eerie crash with golfer Payne Stewart on that private jet.

[Josh Clark]

I don't really remember that. Can you kind of refresh my memory?

[Jerry]

That was in 1999, and I think the post mortem on that one was that this private plane, essentially everyone on board died of hypoxia, including the pilots and it flew for a number of hours.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, really?

[Jerry]

On autopilot. It was a ghost plane, essentially.

[Josh Clark]

Wow.

[Jerry]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So they don't think that hypoxia affected whoever was in control of the plane.

[Jerry]

Because it made that turn.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it was a very deliberate turn. And then it followed an even more deliberate flight pattern after that. This was not random movements of a plane where somebody who was suffering from hypoxia but still alive would make. These weren't confused decisions. They were difficult to understand decisions, but they weren't random and confused behavior. They were deliberate.

[Jerry]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

So one of the pilots, or both of the pilots suffering from hypoxia is ruled out. And the fact that they were deliberate turns also rules out the idea that both of the pilots were dead.

[Jerry]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

That again, it was just the plane flying itself.

[Jerry]

Right. These log on requests by that SDU unit on the plane, it was another big clue there because there was a logon request made at 1:43am and that basically says that the power on the plane's electrical system was shut off for a period of time in between that transponder disappearing and that time of that logon request.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Jerry]

So someone like purposefully disabled. Purposefully disabled these Systems.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So 1:43am would have been about an hour after takeoff. Just over an hour after takeoff, after the transponder was turned off with perfect timing between Kuala Lumpur and Ho Chi Minh, but also before the turn that the Malaysian Air Force tracked.

[Jerry]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

Or at about the same time.

[Jerry]

Right. The other thing that could have happened when the transponder and the SDU were shut off, it could have depressurized the plane. If that happens, then hypoxia is the fear those oxygen masks are gonna drop down. But you only get about 10 minutes of oxygen as a passenger. The cockpit is gonna have a lot more oxygen than that. But we do know for a fact from that logon request that the systems were off for an hour. So even if that were the case, then the masks run out 10 minutes later and the people die of hypoxia. The passengers shortly after that.

[Josh Clark]

The thing is, they believe that not only was MH370 still at cruising altitude, it probably actually climbed to 40,000, maybe a little over 40,000ft. It's basically the maximum that a 777 could stay aloft at.

[Jerry]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So the drop down masks would have been totally useless to begin with. There's not enough oxygen coming through them to offset that kind of height in the depressurized cabin. That's meant for a much lower altitude. And the reason why I found it very disconcerting to learn that there's only like 10 or 15 minutes worth of oxygen coming out of those masks.

[Jerry]

I mean, is the idea there that a plane crash doesn't take longer than that?

[Josh Clark]

The idea is that it's used for an emergency transition down to a much lower altitude where you could breathe without a pressurized cabin, and that that takes less than 10 or 15 minutes. You can do that much more quickly. A few minutes.

[Jerry]

So basically, you're going to start flying with your own oxygen tank.

[Josh Clark]

Basically. Okay. I'll be like, try to take it away from me, tsa. You can't do it.

[Jerry]

Here's another thing, is that that SDU logon request@ the end, it suggests that it was turned back on. And the thinking here is that whoever did this probably didn't care at that point because it was too late, because everyone on board was dead.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So the idea behind all this is that the power was shut off. And they know that the power was turned off because the logon request came at a certain point. Right. So that means that the power had been shut off and it was coming back on. And they think that it was to depressurize the cabin and be a very easy way to depressurize the cabin. Just turn off all of the power.

[Jerry]

And then maybe whoever did this and we'll get to that was like, I want to get back down to normal cruising altitude here so I can fly this plane without wearing a mask, maybe. Or just in a less stressful environment.

[Josh Clark]

Right, exactly. Maybe go get a bite to eat or something like that. There's a lot that can be done in a pressurized cabin.

[Jerry]

And then there was that final arc, the seventh one, that logon request was probably the plane running out of fuel. And this I thought, was super interesting. So the plane runs out of fuel, those engines shut down, but there's still air pumping through those turbines, and that's going to spin the turbine. And that's certainly not going to be enough to fly your plane, but it could be enough to act as a generator and power up the auxiliary power system.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Jerry]

Super, super interesting.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So in the running out of fuel, electrical goes down, those air ram jets come on, and the auxiliary power system comes on. The thing logs back on just enough.

[Jerry]

To get that going again.

[Josh Clark]

Right, exactly. So let's just before we stop for this episode, Chuck, let's just kind of recap what Inmarsat has been able to figure out from seven pings between its satellite and the satellite data unit. Seven pings. They dove into these things so deeply that they were able to figure out that the flight did not crash, that there was probably a hypoxia event among the cabin, that it was deliberate, and that the plane kept flying, not that it did not crash, but that it kept flying for at least six more hours and finally did probably crash in the Southern Indian Ocean. All from seven little pings between the plane and the satellite.

[Jerry]

That's right. And then the final little clue here from the satellite is the ELT emergency transmitter failed. It's emergency location transmitter, and that's linked to a different satellite system. And one person, if you're conspiracy minded, might say, well, you know what this means. It didn't actually crash into the ocean, but these elts apparently have a pretty low success rate. And when you dive into the ocean with no power, it's at tremendous speed. And that would have been enough probably to destroy the plane instantly.

[Josh Clark]

And this elt, there's, there's another. So there's four, I think, on the plane. Did you say that?

[Jerry]

I didn't say four.

[Josh Clark]

So I believe there was four on the plane. One of them, like they can be disabled.

[Jerry]

It's not a black box, by the way.

[Josh Clark]

No, no, no. This is just a beacon that pings a satellite, but isn't even. It's a different satellite from Inmarsat. So it's like an extra fail safe. And this means that all four of them failed, which again, some people think that's evidence right there that this thing didn't actually crash. We'll talk about that in the next episode. How about that?

[Jerry]

All right. I think we don't do listener mails on a part one.

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Jerry]

So just strap in and I hope you can hold off from researching for a couple of days on this one.

[Josh Clark]

Maybe have a Bloody Mary while you're waiting.

[Jerry]

Agreed.

[Josh Clark]

Well, anyway, in the meantime, if you want to get in touch with us, you can go on to stuffyou should know.com and check out our social links. And you can also send us an email to stuffpodcasthyheartradio.com.

[Jerry]

Stuff youf Should Know.

[Josh Clark]

Is a production of iHeartRadio.

[Jerry]

For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit.

[Josh Clark]

The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.

[Ryan Seacrest]

You listen to your favorite shows.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Ice Cube's Big Three is the surprise hit of the summer. This Saturday, 4pm Eastern on CBS. With playoff elimination on the line, the most physical, fiercest and competitive basketball in the world. Miami's Michael Beasley and Lance Stevenson must win to make the playoffs, and breakout star Dwight Howard of the LA Riot will battle Gary Payton's Boston squad in a do a die match for both teams. Six teams are allowed for four spots and all must win. There's no crying in the big three, and the no holds barred action starts Saturday at 4pm Eastern, 1pm Pacific. Presented by iHeart.

[Robert Lamb]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Now through August 26th, it's back to Deals time, where you can enjoy storewide deals and earn four times points. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible items from Hershey's, Cheez It, Kellogg's, Gatorade, Smart Water, Skinny Pop, Oberto, Zoa and Activia. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Shop in store or online for easy drive up and go pickup or delivery subject to availability restrictions apply. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, this is Robert Lamb and this.

[Jerry]

Is Joe McCormick, and we're the hosts of the Stuff to Blow youw Mind podcast. We've got an exciting week ahead for you on Stuff to Blow your Mind. It's Cat Week. That's right. To coincide with International cat Day on August 8th, we're dedicating every episode in the Stuff to Blow youw Mind podcast feed to your cute, mysterious feline companions. So tune in for core Stuff to Blow youw Mind episodes on the earliest archaeological evidence for domesticated cats and the folkloric cats of the British Isles.

[Josh Clark]

The week's monster fact will focus on a popular cat creature, and you better believe Weirdhouse cinema will cover some kind of head scratching cat movie. So tune in August 5th through 8th for stuff to blow your mind's Cat Week. Find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast.