The mystery Malaysia Airlines of flight MH370

At 12.41am local time on 8 March, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 set out from Kuala Lumpur, bound for Beijing. About 40 minutes after its departure, however, nearly all electronic communications from the Boeing 777 stopped: it disappeared from air traffic control radars; and by 2.22am, it had dropped off military radars, too. Half an hour later, the airline confirmed that it had lost contact with MH370.

In the days that followed, a huge Malaysian, and later Australian-led, search operation...