VANISHED

The recent disappearance of the MH370, a Malaysian Airlines Boeing-777, which took off to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on the midnight of Saturday has created a buzz among people. With 239 people on board, 153 of them being Chinese nationals, the flight remained in contact for about one hour after the take-off.   10 countries have sent their officials to search for the missing plane but no information has been gathered about its whereabouts, although a lot of theories are being put forward. It’s been a week now, and the mystery of the plane hasn't been solved yet. However, this is not the only mysterious plane disaster. Over the years, there have been quite a few such mysterious flight crashes and disappearances.

1. Talking about planes, we must have all heard about Amelia Earheart, the first woman to fly solo over the Atlantic Ocean.  The woman’s determination didn't end there. She took a challenge to fly all over the world with her navigator Fred Noonan, but unfortunately, this could have been the worst decision of her life, as she never returned back. The flight seemed to have sent a last signal from the central pacific ocean. Extensive search was done but the flight’s wreckage has never been found.

2. Star Dust was a civilian version of Lancaster Bomber and was registered to the British South American Airways. It was en route from Buenos Aires to Santiago, Chile. Just minutes before its scheduled landing, the plane vanished into the Andes, and it took fifty years to find the wreckage of this plane in a melting glacier. The mysterious part of the crash is the last morse code it transmitted-STENDEC. There have been a lot of theories behind this word, but no one really has been able to decipher its meaning. Until the plane’s ruins were found, there had been speculations about UFO attack on the plane.

3. Flight 19 was the one to open up the Bermuda Triangle Mystery, when five US Navy Aircraft disappeared during the training session with 14 men on board. About one and half hour after their take-off, they reported that they had been disoriented and couldn't look for landmarks. It is possible that they had to make forced landings into the water, but strangely, the planes were never found. It is even weirder that one of the planes which went on search also disappeared.

4. The Air France flight, which was en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, suddenly disappeared from over the Atlantic Ocean. It had over 228 passengers on board. It took five days to find the plane, but three years to find the cause. It seems that ice crystals caused obstruction to the flight and the plane crashed down into the water.

We don’t know where the fate of MH370 lies, as of today. But I hope that the mystery is solved soon so that the families of the passengers get an answer. Sometimes, it is only sheer luck. Even the safest planes built with the best technology one can offer can be put to ruins. It isn't science that determines fate. Destiny of the 239 people on board was apparently written this way and we couldn't have changed it.