MH370: 14 conspiracy theories that could explain where the plane is – and what happened

The total lack of information about MH370's disappearance has made it a fertile topic for conspiracy theorists

French gendarmes and police inspect a large piece of plane debris which was found on the beach in Saint-Andre, on the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion (Reuters)

It is now almost a year and a half since a Boeing 777 carrying 239 people set off from Kuala Lumpur airport for Beijing and disappeared without a trace.

And while wreckage that could possibly be from the missing plane has been found washed up on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion, we are still no closer to finding out exactly what happened.

The severe lack of information and tantalising mystery that surrounds the plane's fate has meant that a number of odd conspiracy theories have sprung up to fill the void - including Putin, life insurance scams and naturally, the Illuminati.

This is just a selection of the ideas about what happened to the plane – based on a range of different assumptions.

It was stolen by Russia and flown to Kazakhstan

We start with one of the most recent and elaborate theories – that Vladimir Putin ordered Russian special forces to hijack Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 and fly it to a spaceport in Kazakhstan.

Jeff Wise, a private pilot and science writer, claims he has evidence that the plane made its way to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, which is run by Russia as its largest space launch facility.

Wise has appeared on CNN and blogged extensively on the idea that, despite British satellite company Inmarsat’s data concluding the plane went down in the Indian Ocean, MH370 actually flew north and the navigation data was “spooked” to disguise this fact.

He admits he has “no idea” why the Russian President would want to “steal a Malaysian passenger plane?”

“Maybe he wanted to demonstrate to the United States, which had imposed the first punitive sanctions on Russia the day before, that he could hurt the West and its allies anywhere in the world,” he wrote in New York Magazine.

“Maybe what he was really after were the secrets of one of the plane’s passengers.

“Maybe there was something strategically crucial in the hold.

“Or maybe he wanted the plane to show up unexpectedly somewhere someday, packed with explosives. There’s no way to know.”

It was shot down in a military training exercise

While the Australian officials leading the search for MH370 say they remain “absolutely convinced” it ended up in the southern Indian Ocean, some passengers’ families – and theorists – distrust the unprecedented satellite data analysis involved.

Map showing the new search area in the Indian ocean for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 (EPA)

Among those who supported this view were the British journalist and author Nigel Cawthorne, who suggested one theory, based on the eye-witness testimony of New Zealand oil rig worker Mike McKay, that the plane was shot down shortly after it stopped communicating with air traffic controllers.

At the time there was a series of war games taking place in the South China Sea involving Thailand, the US and personnel from China, Japan, Indonesia and others, and Cawthorne has linked this to Mr McKay’s claims to have seen a burning plane going down in the Gulf of Thailand.

It was flown north and shot down deliberately, prompting cover-up

At a stage in the investigation when it was believed the plane could have flown for some time from where it disappeared along either a northern or southern corridor, many posted on forums suggesting that if it had been the former we would never hear about what happened.

Some still distrust the Inmarsat data and support this view, particularly after former RAF navigator Sean Maffett told the BBC that after 9/11, any unidentified airliner entering the airspace of another country would lead to fighter jets being scrambled.

“If the plane is in the northern arc it could easily have been shot down,” he said. This theory also involves a national – or possibly international – cover-up, based on the premise that no country would want to admit to shooting down an airliner full of passengers from all over the world.

It was flown north in the ‘shadow’ of another plane

Another theory suggests that instead of flying south, the plane flew north in the “shadow” of another airliner around half an hour to an hour after dropping off civilian radar.

A relative of one of the Chinese passengers from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 holds a candle (Getty Images)

The aviation blogger Keith Ledgerwood argued that MH370 and Singapore Airlines flight 68 were in the same vicinity at the time, and said: “It became apparent as I inspected SIA68's flight path history that MH370 had manoeuvred itself directly behind SIA68 at approximately 18:00UTC and over the next 15 minutes had been following SIA68.”

By flying a short distance behind and most likely a little above the altitude of SIA68, also a Boeing 777, Ledgerwood said that it would be able to appear as a single blip on radar screens.

SIA68 flew on to Spain – and this theory suggests MH370 could have branched off and landed in one of a number of locations across Xinjiang (north-east China), Kyrgyzstan or Turkmenistan.

Experts have said that the idea sounds “feasible”, and that even if higher-resolution military radar was monitoring SIA68 operators might have dismissed the fact that there were two objects as an technical glitch or echo.

It tried to land on a desert island beach

After reports that the plane had turned left shortly following its disappearance from civilian radar screens, speculation grew that it could have landed on a remote beach somewhere like the Andaman Islands, which lie between Indonesia and the coast of Thailand.

Indian sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik gives the final touches to a sand sculpture on December 29, 2014 (AFP/Getty Images)

Though CNN reported that locals dismissed the idea a Boeing 777 could land on an airstrip there undetected, the archipelago consists of hundreds of remote islands with some long stretches of sand.

Former BA pilot Steve Buzdygan said it would be difficult – but not impossible – to bring a 777 down on a long deserted beach.

It landed at a US military base

One of the more outlandish conspiracy theories that has gained some traction online is the idea that MH370 could have been “captured” and flown to a military base on the UK-owned tropical atoll of Diego Garcia, in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

The base is run by the US, and some have reportedly said in forum postings that the Kremlin has put some credence into this possibility.

Parents and children release a sky lantern, with a note of prayer written for MH370, on 13 September (Getty)

Such is the strength of belief in this theory that the US government has been forced to issue a denial. A spokesperson for the US embassy in Malaysia told the local Star newspaper that there was “no indication that MH370 flew anywhere near the Maldives or Diego Garcia”. “MH370 did not land in Diego Garcia,” he added.

It headed for a remote airport in Langkawi, Malaysia

One theory, put forward by another aviation blogger named Chris Goodfellow, has it that the sudden left turn came after major catastrophe knocked out a range of the plane’s electronics, from transponders to communications equipment.

In this scenario and in the middle of the night, Goodfellow argued, the pilot would redirect towards the nearest safe airport.

“This pilot did all the right things,” he said. “Actually he was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi, a 13,000ft (4,000m) strip with an approach over water at night with no obstacles. He did not turn back to Kuala Lumpur because he knew he had 8,000ft ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier towards Langkawi and also a shorter distance.”

This theory assumes that the plane was in fact controlled manually once it disappeared – and that it did not make it to Langkawi.

There was a fire throughout the plane

Many theories accept that the Inmarsat satellite analysis is accurate – that the plane headed south into the Indian Ocean and flew on for hours before a final, partial “handshake” in a remote location thousands of miles off the west coast of Australia.

The M/V Fugro Discovery, which along with the Malaysian-contracted GO Phoenix, is searching for MH370 (AFP/Getty Images)

The issue here becomes explaining what happened in the cabin between the last contact with flight controllers and the plane’s seemingly inevitable crash far out to see.

One suggestion is that a fire broke out, not just in the cockpit but throughout the interior of the plane. The implication is that this resulted in the attempt to turn back, after which the fire killed those on board.

This theory would then have it that the fire went out before damaging the exterior of the plane, which flew on autopilot until its fuel ran out.

Yet such a fire would be expected to spread with at least some warning – and that surely would have given the pilots time to issue a mayday distress signal.

There was an explosion in the cockpit

The theory of a sudden explosion within the cockpit before the turn left could explain why there was no attempt to signal for help.

Since 9/11 cockpits doors have been fortified to become extremely difficult to bypass, and such a sudden incident could perhaps have incapacitated both pilots while keeping out the rest of the crew.

A Malaysian man lights up candles during a vigil in remembrance for passengers and crew of the Malaysian Airline flight MH370 & MH17 in Petaling Jaya near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (EPA)

This explanation does not seem to tally with the claims of some Malaysian officials, however, that the change in direction was the result of “seven or eight keystrokes into a computer on a knee-high pedestal between the captain and the first officer”, or the latest reports that the flight avoided detection deliberately.

There was a struggle at altitude

Though Malaysian officials believe that the plane was deliberately diverted, and that its communications systems were turned off one after the other, a detailed background check into all 227 passengers has cleared all of suspicion.

If, however, we do accept that the plane was the subject of a passenger hijacking, it remains to be explained why the hijackers did not try to do more than fly the plane into the middle of the southern Indian Ocean.

One theory suggests that there was some kind of struggle for control of the plane that ultimately ended with mutual destruction.

Further analysis of data by Malaysian officials suggests that the plane was flown erratically once it left civilian radar, climbing to 45,000ft before dropping very low. Buzdygan told the BBC he would resort to this sort of flying if faced with would-be hijackers. “I’d try to disorientate and confuse the hijackers by throwing them around,” he said.

There was a botched hijack attempt

The climb to 45,000ft could also have been carried out by the hijackers once they had taken control – in a bid to kill the passengers on board.

Family members of passengers aboard the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 burn incense to pray at Yonghegong Lama Temple in Beijing

At such an altitude it could be possible to depressurise the cabin, causing oxygen supplies to be deployed. These run out after 12-15 minutes and, if those flying the plane had access to another oxygen supply, could have been an attempt to prevent anyone intervening.

Under this theory the suggestion is clearly that the attempt failed, killing the hijackers as well.

The pilot committed suicide

As part of the ongoing criminal investigation in Malaysia, police are looking into the state of mind and possible motives of the captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah and co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid.

The Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar has said that “all possibilities” will be looked into, and there have been reports that Shah was going through a difficult marriage break-up.

Yet such comments have been rubbished by the man’s relatives, who have described him since as a dedicated family man and model professional.

Such an incident would mirror the Germanwings disaster, in which pilot Andreas Lubitz, who suffered from serious mental health problems, deliberately crashed his plane, killing all 150 people on board.

Hugh Dunleavy, the commercial director of Malaysia Airlines, described Shah as a seasoned pilot with an excellent record.

“There have been absolutely no implications that we are aware of that there was anything untoward in either his behaviour or attitude,” he told Reuters. “We have no reason to believe that there was anything, any actions, internally by the crew that caused the disappearance of this aircraft.”

It was sabotage – for a life insurance scam or corporate attack

One of the other strands of the criminal investigation regards whether the plane was subject to some form of sabotage – either as part of a life insurance scam or over industrial espionage.

A young relative tries to stick paper planes on a board during an event to remember the 100th day of the missing crews and passengers of Malaysian Airlines plane MH370 in Damansara, Selangor

Bakar said that when passengers and crew were being investigated, police were looking for “Maybe somebody on the flight has bought a huge sum of insurance, who wants family to gain from it or somebody who has owed somebody so much money, you know, we are looking at all possibilities.”

There were also 20 employees of the US silicon chip company Freescale Semiconductor on board the plane at the time, and a retired Delta Airlines pilot has suggested the plane’s disappearance was an attempt to steal technology the engineers had applied – but not yet received – a patent for.

Naturally, some theorists have pinned the blame for this piece of corporate sabotage squarely on Lord Rothschild and the Illuminati.

There was a CIA cover-up

Finally, the former prime minister of Malaysia Mahathir Mohamad waded in last year with his own theory – suggesting that, one way or another, the CIA is definitely hiding something.

In a blog entry posted on 18 May 2014 entitled ‘Boeing Technology – What goes up must come down’, Dr Mahathir Mohamad makes ten claims including that the plane was taken over remotely by officials working for Boeing and the CIA.

“The plane is somewhere, maybe without MAS markings,” reads Dr Mohamad’s post on chedet.

“Someone is hiding something. It is not fair that MAS and Malaysia should take the blame,” 88-year-old Dr Mahathir, who was Malaysia's prime minister between 1981 and 2003, alleges.

“Airplanes don’t just disappear,” he said, concluding: “For some reason the media will not print anything that involves Boeing or the CIA. I hope my readers will read this.”

Boeing have denied Dr Mohamed’s theory.