Here's a summary of what
we know and what we don't know about Flight 370, which was carrying 239
people when it disappeared from radar screens over Southeast Asia.
THE FLIGHT PATH
What we know:
The Boeing 777-200ER took off from Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital,
at 12:41 a.m. Saturday (12:41 p.m. Friday ET). It was scheduled to
arrive in Beijing at 6:30 a.m. the same day, after a roughly 2,700-mile
(4,350-kilometer) journey. But around 1:30 a.m., air traffic controllers
in Subang, outside Kuala Lumpur, lost contact with the plane over the
sea between Malaysia and Vietnam.
What we don't know:
What happened next. The pilots did not indicate any problem to the
tower, and no distress signal was issued. Malaysian military officials
cite radar data as suggesting the plane might have turned back toward
Kuala Lumpur. But the pilots didn't tell air traffic control that they
were doing so.
A senior Malaysian air
force official said Tuesday that the plane traveled hundreds of miles
off course, moving in the opposite direction from its original
destination, and had stopped sending identifying transponder codes
before it disappeared.
We don't know why the
plane would have turned around. While one expert tells CNN the plane's
deviation could mean someone deliberately turned the plane around,
another expert says power failure could have disrupted the main
transponder and its backup, and the plane could have flown for more than
an hour.
THE PASSENGERS
What we know:
There were 239 people on board: 227 passengers and 12 crew members.
Five of the passengers were younger than 5 years old. Those on board
included a number of painters and calligraphers, as well as employees of an American semiconductor company.
According to the
airline, the passengers' 14 nationalities spanned the Asia-Pacific
region, Europe and North America. Passengers from China or Taiwan
numbered 154, followed by Malaysians, at 38. There were three U.S.
citizens on the plane. Four passengers had valid booking to travel but
did not show up for the flight, according to the airline. "As such, the
issue of off-loading unaccompanied baggage did not arise," it added
Tuesday in a prepared statement.
What we don't know: Whether any of the passengers had anything to do with the plane's disappearance.
THE PASSPORT MYSTERY
What we know:
Two passengers boarded the plane using stolen passports. Authorities
have identified them as Pouri Nourmohammadi, 18, and Delavar Seyed
Mohammad Reza, 29, both Iranians. Malaysian police believe Nourmohammadi
was trying to emigrate to Germany using the stolen Austrian passport.
The men entered Malaysia on February 28 using valid Iranian passports,
according to Interpol.
The use of the stolen
passports had raised concern that the people who used them might be
involved in the plane's disappearance. But officials have said they
think it is unlikely the Iranian men had links to terrorist groups.
Malaysian police said Nourmohammadi's mother contacted them after her
son didn't arrive in Frankfurt as expected.
"The more information we
get, the more we're inclined to conclude that it was not a terrorist
incident," Ronald Noble, the secretary general of the international
police organization Interpol, said Tuesday.
What we don't know:
More details about the two men, particularly Reza. Would-be immigrants
have used fake passports to try to enter Western countries in the past.
THE SECURITY SCREENING
What we know:
Interpol says the passports were listed as stolen in its database. But
they had not been checked from the time they were entered into the
database and the time the plane departed. Noble said it was "clearly of
great concern" that passengers had been able to board an international
flight using passports listed as stolen in the agency's database.
What we don't know: Whether
the passports had been used to travel previously. Interpol says it's
"unable to determine on how many other occasions these passports were
used to board flights or cross borders." Malaysian authorities are
investigating the security process at the airport in Kuala Lumpur, but
insisted it meets international standards.
THE CREW
What we know:
The crew members are Malaysian. The pilot is Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, a
53-year-old veteran with 18,365 flying hours who joined Malaysia
Airlines in 1981. The first officer, Fariq Ab Hamid, has 2,763 flying
hours. Hamid, 27, started at the airline in 2007. He had been flying
another jet and was transitioning to the Boeing 777-200 after having completed training in a flight simulator.
What we don't know:
What went on in the cockpit around the time the plane lost contact with
air traffic controllers. The passenger jet was in what is considered the safest part of a flight,
the cruise portion, when it disappeared. The weather conditions were
reported to be good. Aviation experts say it's particularly puzzling
that the pilots didn't report any kind of problems before contact was
lost.
THE SEARCH
What we know:
Dozens of ships and planes from various countries have been scouring
the South China Sea near where the plane was last detected. Debris in
the area has turned out to be unrelated to the plane. "We have not found
anything that appear to be objects from the aircraft, let alone the
aircraft," Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, director general of the Malaysian
Civil Aviation Department, said Monday. Similarly, a slick in the area
was determined to be from fuel oil typically used in cargo ships, not
from the plane.
What we don't know:
Whether the search is concentrating on the right place. Authorities
initially focused their efforts around the mouth of the Gulf of
Thailand, near the plane's last known position. But they have expanded
efforts westward, off the other coast of the Malay Peninsula, and
northward into the Andaman Sea, part of the Indian Ocean.
THE CAUSE
What we know:
Nothing. "For the aircraft to go missing just like that ... as far as
we are concerned, we are equally puzzled as well," Rahman said Monday.
The aircraft model in question, the Boeing 777-200ER, has an excellent
safety record.
What we don't know:
Until searchers find the plane and its voice and data recorders, it may
be difficult to figure out what happened. CNN national security analyst
Peter Bergen says the range of possible reasons
behind the disappearance can be divided into three categories:
mechanical failure, pilot actions and terrorism. But all we have are
theories.
THE PRECEDENT
What we know:
It's rare, but not unprecedented, for a commercial airliner to
disappear in midflight. In June 2009, Air France Flight 447 was en route
from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when communications ended suddenly from
the Airbus A330, another state-of-the-art aircraft, with 228 people on
board. It took five days to locate the first piece of debris from that
plane -- and nearly two years to find the bulk of Flight 447's wreckage
and most of the bodies in a mountain range deep in the Atlantic Ocean.
It took even longer to establish the cause of the disaster.
What we don't know:
Whether what happened to the missing Malaysia Airlines plane is similar
to what happened to the Air France flight. Investigators attributed the
Flight 447 crash to a series of errors by the pilots and their failure
to react effectively to technical problems.
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