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Search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370

A timeline of our involvement in the search for and investigation into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

At 0041 on Saturday 8 March 2014, a Boeing 777, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, takes off from Kuala Lumpur airport on a six hour flight to Beijing, China.

At 0141 MH370 disappears from air traffic controllers' screens.

There are 239 people on board.

Malaysian authorities begin a massive search of the South China Sea but there is no sign of the missing aircraft.

After analysis of satellite data it is discovered that MH370 continued to fly for over six hours after contact was lost. The satellite transmissions indicate the plane must have travelled on one of two corridors; one to the north in the direction of Kazakhstan and one to the south into the Indian Ocean.

When the search for MH370 transitioned from a search and rescue operation to an investigation phase the Joint Agency Coordination Centre took over the day to day communications.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) was part of a larger interagency response including the Australian Transport Safety BureauDepartment of DefenceDepartment of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development.

Disclaimer

This timeline has been developed as an historical resource to preserve for the record the public information released by AMSA during the period in which AMSA was the lead agency in the search for Malaysia Airline's flight MH370.

During this period AMSA released a large amount of public information in the form of press conferences, media releases, images, charts, video, audio files and social media posts.

This content has been preserved in this timeline without amendment and in the order in which it was released. This timeline was developed as the events occurred. AMSA reserves the right to provide corrected information in the future if any inadvertent errors occurred when this information was first published.

The information contained in this webpage is not a comprehensive report on all of AMSA's operations during this period and as such is only intended to provide an overview of AMSA's public communications and not an official version of events.

Last updated: 

Wednesday 20 October 2021