Search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 The disappearance on 8 March 2014 of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a scheduled international passenger flight from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to Beijing Capital International Airport, prompted a large, multinational search in Asia and the southern Indian Ocean that became the most expensive search in aviation history. Analysis of communications between the aircraft and Inmarsat by multiple agencies has concluded that the flight ended in the southern Indian Ocean. An analysis of possible flight paths was conducted, identifying a primary search-area, approximately west of Perth, Western Australia, which takes six days for vessels to
Timeline of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 soon discounted and a search of a remote region of the southern Indian Ocean, led by Australia, began on 18 March. On 24 March, Malaysia Airlines and Najib announced that the flight had ended in the Southern Indian Ocean without survivors. In early April, an intense effort—the "acoustic search"— was made to detect the acoustic signals generated by underwater locator beacons (ULBs, also known as "pingers") attached to the flight recorders on Flight 370. After immersion in water, the ULBs emit an acoustic signal (also called a "ping") at a specific frequency once per second and have a battery life