We are closing this live blog now – here is our full report.
What we learned
- The 1,500 page investigative report into the disappearance of MH370 resulted in the ultimate conclusion that investigators do not know what happened to the Malaysian Airlines plane, which vanished four years ago
- Lead investigator Kok Soo Chon says MH370 deviated from its path, and this was more than as a result of system anomalies, but that the air turn back was made under manual control.
- Investigators said they put every conspiracy theory, rumour and piece of gossip on social media “on the table” and considered all of them, eventually whittling down the list to about seven plausible theories.
- Investigators identified a series of mistakes made at various points, including by air traffic control, who did not initiate various emergency phases available to them, delaying search and rescue operations.
- The pilot and first officer were well-rested and not under apparent financial, emotional or psychological stress.
- Kok added that some evidence that “points irresistibly to unlawful interference, such as the communications ceasing and the manual turn back” and said several times that “unlawful interference” could not be ruled out.
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Families of those onboard the missing aircraft expressed their anger at the lack of answers provided in the report, with one saying “Four years on, we are none the wiser”.
- Though the Malaysian authorities billed today’s report as their “final” report into the disappeared aircraft, much to the upset of many family members, Kok began the press conference by clarifying it was not a “final” report and that the search might continue.
Our south-east Asia correspondent Hannah Ellis-Petersen has this wrap of the key points of the MH370 report today.
The long-awaited report – which was initially described as the “final report” though investigators then backtracked from that description – left the hopes of the families dashed after it failed to provide any concrete conclusions about the reasons the plane disappeared and any indicator where the wreckage might be.
Speaking at a press conference, Dr Kok Soo Chon, investigator in charge of the MH370 safety investigation, did not assign blame for the incident but laid out several protocols that were broken by the air traffic control in Malaysia and Vietnam which ensured that the plane went missing for twenty minutes before anyone was alerted.
Rather than providing answers, the 1,500 page report meticulously disproved many of the theories that have abounded about what happened to MH370.
One of the few concrete conclusions drawn in the report was that the manoeuvre to turn the plane around, taking it off its normal flight path just after 1am, was initiated manually, either by the pilot or a third party, rather than because of autopilot, though it did not speculate reasons.
“The turn back could not be attributed to an anomalous system,” said Kok. “It has been established that the air turn back was done under manual control, not autopilot...we cannot rule out unlawful interference by a third party.”
Kok added that while some evidence that “points irresistibly to unlawful interference, such as the communications ceasing and the manual turn back” he also emphasised that no terrorist group had taken credit.
Grace Nathan, the daughter of one of the passengers onboard MH370, who has been outspoken throughout the search for the plane, has written of her frustration at the substance of today’s report.
“Ladies and gentlemen after 4.5 years of investigation the conclusion ... is : 1. We don’t know what happened. 2. We don’t know why it happened. 3. We don’t know how it happened. 4. We don’t know what if anything is going to be done about it,” Nathan wrote on Facebook.
She called the failings of air traffic control in Malaysia to follow procedures “mind-boggling” and expressed dismay that the aircraft was deemed to have no issues, except that one of the underwater locator beacons had an expired battery. “Yet there is no explanation why none of four transmitters on the plane sent any distress signal. But apparently these transmitters, which are on every single plane, only work 22% of the time.”
“Four years on, we are none the wiser,” she wrote.
Some Chinese families of relatives who were on MH370 – and most of the 239 people on board the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing were from China – said they were waiting for a briefing on the report on 3 August in Beijing.
Wen Wancheng, whose son was on the plane, said he would travel to Beijing, from Shandong province, south of the capital, for the meeting, but he isn’t hopeful.
“It’s nothing more than a formality. I don’t think we are able to learn any more details, or what exactly happened. What I want is to find and punish all the people who are responsible for MH370,” Wen said.
Jiang Hui, whose mother was on MH370, said, “What I care about is how the International Civil Aviation Organisation and authorities will analyse this report to adjust and improve their work to find out what happened to MH370. This report is just the start for me, not an end,” he said.
The release of the investigation on Monday was widely followed in Chinese media. On the micrblog, Weibo, it was the sixth most viewed topic, with more than 2 million views.
“I just want to know the truth,” one user wrote.
Among the safety recommendations offered by the investigation team are reviewing the duty roster system with the objective of improving working conditions, refresher training for air traffic controllers, to introduce new security measures for cargo-scanning, and to ensure medical conditions of flight crew are reported to relevant bodies.
The #MH370 investigation team’s safety recommendations. The full report can be viewed here: https://t.co/l91Cfz7ECU pic.twitter.com/IAIaN1zKz6
— Sumisha Naidu (@SumishaCNA) July 30, 2018
My colleague Naaman Zhou has been following the story of MH370 throughout the search for the missing plane, he has this analysis of today’s report:
Very little in today’s report is new.
However, there are a few small revelations that will be interesting to the family members and next of kin.
The first is that MH370’s emergency locator transmitters (ELT) all malfunctioned.
ELTs are supposed to transmit distress signals that could have helped locate the plane, but all four of MH370’s ELTs failed. Their batteries were within their expiry dates, but for whatever reason, no signal was sent out.
The report found that “there have been reported difficulties with ELT signals if an aircraft enters the water ... In these instances, the ELT does not activate, or the transmission is ineffective as a result of being submerged.”
The second is about mangosteens and batteries.
MH370 was carrying 4,566 kg of mangosteens and 221 kg of lithium-ion batteries in its cargo hold. It has long been speculated that this could have sparked a fire that led to the crash.
The report today rejects this theory – but the analysis is based only by looking at previous battery and mangosteen shipments.
The fine details confirm that the battery shipment did not go through x-ray screening on the day of the flight because “there were no available x-ray machines large enough”. Larger machines were installed a few months after MH370 disappeared.
This could raise questions about whether a battery malfunction, or improper packing, could have led to the crash.
The event is wrapping up, the moderator says 29 questions were asked and answered. He is thanking the media for their participation.
It looks like questions are wrapping up. The moderator is urging journalists to ask more questions.
“We don’t know when we will meet again,” he said.
Updated
Someone is asking Kok Soo Chon why it has taken so long to release this report. Kok is laughing after this question, which seems understandable given he has addressed this point several times so far.
However, he is answering: “This is a very difficult question so far, it is maybe the most difficult.”
He says that one year after the plane went missing his team published a 600-page report. After that they began a process of checking and verifying. “After that we are able to come up with findings and analysis and conclusion.”
He said there were many reasons for the delayed publication. As new information came in they had to change the report, “It’s a dynamic document,” he says.
He added: “We cannot release our document, no matter how ready we are, when the search is still going on.”
Kok said “sweat, tears and also joy” had gone into the report.
“It won’t be satisfactory to everybody,” says Kok, but he takes comfort from the fact that seven countries had endorsed the report.
Updated
Kok Soo Chon is mentioning the two passengers onboard MH370 who were found not to be travelling on false passports. Kok says “they were proved to be innocent”.
Grace Nathan, the daughter of one of the passengers onboard the missing plane, has said the report “did not reveal anything new or earth-shattering”.
She wrote of the Annex 13 Safety Investigation Team, who briefed the next of kin: “their role and scope came across very limited. The team was formed two months after MH370 disappeared. Therefore certain investigations had already been carried out by Malaysian police and or other bodies/authorities before the team came into being.
“They appear not have to questioned or challenged what was handed over to them. Nor was any new independent investigation launched....All in all the report did not reveal anything new or earth shattering. No conclusions were drawn, no blame was assigned.”
Kok Soo Chon is addressing a question about the fact that families of those who were onboard MH370 were only notified that they would be able to come to Malaysia for the briefing 48 hours ago, which meant some were not able to make the journey.
Kok says his team is just responsible for the safety report and nothing else.
“We are not even responsible for the arrangement of this hall,” he says. “We are only told come here at 2:30, meet and brief the press. I did not know the NOK [next of kin] were informed 48 hours ago... I regret this.”
“I can tell you it’s not fair, it’s not fair,” he added. “But there’s nothing I can do.”
Kok Soo Chon is answering a question about whether “unlawful interference” could have been involved in the disappearance of the plane.
“Could you say unlawful interference could have [occurred], I do not know, it’s best for the police to say,” says Kok.
In response to a question about why he wouldn’t rule out the pilot was responsible, he said “We do not say they did not do it,” but he said it was not likely.
Kok says there was some evidence that “points irresistibly to unlawful interference, such as the communications ceasing and the manual turn back.
However, he said there was evidence against unlawful interference, such as the fact no group had claimed credit. He also clarified that the pilot and first officer showed now psychological signs that they might have deliberately crashed the plane.
“I’m not ruling out anything, but there were two psychiatrists in my team and they were responsible for examining the audio recordings of the pilot and they concluded there was no anxiety and no stress in the recording, it was just normal, and they also recorded the footage from CCTV ... they didn’t find any significant behavioural changes.”
Investigating MH370 is 'one of the toughest jobs in the world'
Kok Soo Chon the lead investigator has said: “When you investigate MH370 it’s one of the toughest jobs in the world,” as they try to work without evidence, wreckage and precedent.
“We read all the allegations, all the gossips in social media, and we put them all on the table,” he said. After investigation, he said only seven theories remained behind.
Updated
We’re getting some very technical questions now from one reporter about the underwater locator beacons (ULBs) on the plane. How many there were, what their expiry dates were etc.
MH370’s right flaperon was in a neutral position, according to the report.
Debate over the status of the flaperon – a part of the plane’s wing that washed up on the coast of Réunion island – is absolutely crucial to the competing theories about what happened to MH370 and where the wreckage lies.
A leading alternative theoryargues that the pilot, Captain Zaharie, was conscious at the time MH370 crashed.
The official explanation, repeated today, is that Zaharie was unconscious. With no-one at the helm, researchers assumed MH370 dived sharply and steeply once it ran out of fuel, which meant that it would have landed in the ocean close to its final satellite position.
This assumption guided the entire recent search mission.
However, with no trace of the plane yet found, many argue that Zaharie (or another pilot) was conscious at the end of the flight. If someone was at the helm, they could have glided the plane in a controlled descent, taking the plane hundreds of kilometres away from the place where everybody has been searching.
But the report today doubles down on the finding that the flaperon was not deployed, meaning that nobody was in control.
“Damage examination indicates that the right outboard flap was most likely in the retracted position and the right flaperon was probably at, or close to, the neutral position, at the time they separated from the wing,” it said.
In the words of the chief investigator: “All this gives us the indication and belief that the aircraft at that time was not configured to land”.
Kok Soo Chon is answering a question about whether he has more work to do now that this report has been released.
“When this report is released there will be quite a heavy schedule,” says Kok, who says they will be going to China where there will be briefings, questions in parliament and interviews on TV. But after this trip, Kok says he and his team “will have nothing to do”.
“We wouldn’t want to hang around with nothing to do, and still call ourselves a team.” And Kok says they will offer to terminate their contracts.
A reporter is now calling the investigators to task for the fact that this report was billed as the “final report” but Kok Soo Chon began his presentation by declaring it wasn’t and is asking about how four years after the plane disappeared the families still don’t have answers.
Kok is standing by the fact that the report is not a final one, saying that with no victims found and without the bulk of the wreckage, “how could we call our report the final report?”
The reporter is pushing back and is asking whether it is realistic to think families would ever get conclusive answers.
“The answer can only be conclusive if the wreckage is found,” says Kok. “As far as our team is concerned, our work is done, we have released the report.”
We have a question from a reporter asking for clarification about Kok Soo Chon’s assertion that they could not rule out interference by a third party.
Kok says “we have done analysis and we have come up with findings. We have examined the pilot, the flight officer, we are quite satisfied with the background, training, of the officers.” But he added; “We cannot deny that there was a turn back. We are not ruling out any possibility.”
A Q&A is beginning with the investigations team.
Team unable to determine the reason for MH370's disappearance
“We cannot determine with any certainty the reason the plane diverted from its planned route,” says Kok Soo Chon.
“The team is unable to determine the real reason for the disappearance.”
Conclusion of the report
Kok Soo Chon says the conclusion of their report is that MH370 deviated from its path, and this was more than as a result of system anomalies, but that the air turn back was made under manual control.
They also concluded that Ho Chi Minh also made a mistake by not notifying Chinese authorities earlier when the plane did not make contact.
Kok said the air traffic controllers didn’t initiate various emergency phases available to them, delaying search and rescue opetation.
The pilot and first officer were well rested and not under financial stress, and showed no evidence of any anxiety or stress.
The aircraft was well-maintained and had no malfunction or defect of the aircraft that could have contributed to the disappearance.
The lack of contact before the turn back, could indicate systems being manually turned off whether with intent or otherwise.
Today’s report has waved away concerns around the in-flight home simulator of MH370’s pilot, Captan Zaharie Ahmad Shah.
Zaharie’s home flight simulator was seized in 2014, and investigators discovered it had seven custom coordinates which plotted a course from Malaysia to the Indian Ocean, where MH370 is believed to have crashed.
But the report today says this not proof that the crash was deliberate.
The Malaysian authorities could not confirm whether the seven waypoints were all from the same file, or from multiple files. Police also did not find any data that showed the aircraft was “performing climb, attitude or heading manoeuvres”.
They concluded that there were “no unusual activities other than game-related flight simulations”.
This echoes the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, who in 2016 also found the data inconclusive, and warned against inferring too much from the flight simulator.
Updated
Kok Soo Chon is talking about the cargo of the plane, which included 2,500 kg of mango, put in plastic baskets.
Kok also addressed the large number of lithium batteries onboard MH370, which some people have suggested is suspicious. Kok is saying that lithium batteries are a common form of cargo and added: “We have not found any irregularities in the packing process.”
There are 27 pieces of wreckage believed to be from MH370 that have been found, though only three have been confirmed as parts belonging to that plane.
Kok Soo Chon says the items of debris have been found as far north as the eastern coast of Tanzania and as far south as eastern coast of South Africa.
No evidence that MH370 was taken over by remote control
“There is no evidence to support the theory that MH370 was taken over by remote control,” says Kok Soo Chon, the head of the investigative team.
Kok said they investigated claims of a system that Boeing patented in 2006, that once activated, would take control from the pilot and land the plane at a pre-arranged location.
“We have confirmation from Boeing that they have no information of any commercial aircraft with this technology,” said Kok.
Investigators looked at a flight simulator in the pilot’s home. They concluded there was nothing suspicious with this, but that the simulator was “game-related”.
They also investigated claims that the first officer’s phone had been used after the plane went offline.
“We talked to the telco service provider, we confirmed there was a signal heat coming in at the morning of the crash. But the signal heat was just a signal heat to show that the phone was turned on, but there was no call,” said Kok.
Updated
Kok Soo Chon is talking about the pilot now. He says the pilot is the first person they examined in their investigation.
The pilot was 53, married with three children and was a very experienced pilot with 18,000 hours of flying.
Kok says the captain had no history of mental or psychiatric treatment, there was no evidence conflict issues with friends or family, no drug use, no evidence of troubled relationships with family members, no stress or anxiety was detected in audio recordings from the flight, no evidence of financial stress and no evidence that he had taken out additional insurance.
He was a very well-respected pilot and trainer.
“We cannot exclude the possibility that there was unlawful interference by a third party,” said Kok Soo Chon.
The aircraft turned back under manual control
“What we have established is that the aircraft has turned back,” says Kok Soo Chon, the lead investigator. “We can conclude that MH370 had turned back and the turn back was not because of anomalies in the mechanical system. The turn back was made not under autopilot but under manual control.”
He said the civilian and military radar were consistent with each other on this point.
Updated
Kok Soo Chon, the lead investigator is taking people through the timeline of the night that MH370 disappeared, reminding people of the fateful last communication between air traffic control and the plane, in which the air traffic controller said “Goodnight Malaysian three seven zero”.
“It’s a very tedious process,” says Kok Soo Chon, who said sending the report to the seven other countries and getting back comments from them was “very tedious”.
After four years of going back and forth he said, the nations involved in the search “have finally reached a consensus”.
Kok Soo Chon, the lead investigator, says this report was not prepared by Malaysia alone, but in consultation with seven other countries, including Australia and the UK.
“I’m happy to inform that the report was endorsed by all seven countries,” said Kok.
Kok Soo Chon begins by stating that this is not the last report that the Malaysian government will be doing into the search for the missing plane.
“Firstly, to allay some fears, this is not a final report, this is just a report,” he said.
First to address the group is Dr Kok Soo Chon, investigator in charge of the search.
A briefing from the Malaysian investigation team into MH370 will be followed by questions from the media.
Press conference begins
The press conference at which the report into the missing plane is launched, has begun. We will bring you updates of what is said as soon as it comes through.
Grace Nathan, whose mother was on the flight and who has previously spoken to the Guardian about her anger that the search was abandoned by the government, wrote publicly today about the need for the search to continue. “Just because they call it a final report doesn’t mean it’s over for the next of kin,” she wrote on Facebook. “The search must go on.”
Nathan has been tweeting from inside the briefing that was held for families ahead of the public release of the report. She said the speakers were investigator in charge Datl’ Dr. Kok Soo Chon, and three senior investigators Captain Abdul Waha Ibrahim and Datuk Dr Mohd Sha Mahmood and Mohan Suppiah.
She said families were putting “very difficult questions” to the team who were offering “no adequate answer to some pertinent queries”.
Some very difficult questions being put forth by the NOK to the investigation team. There is a lack of depth in the answers and no adequate answer to some pertinent queries.
— Grace S. Nathan (@gracesnathan) July 30, 2018
Families of those onboard the flight were given the full report to read this morning and have had a briefing with the investigations team.
Next of kin looked distraught after receiving the report, many sobbing and saying that the document offered them “no closure”. Some said that information contained in the report was incorrect.
“Some of the information in the report is wrong, the information about the cabin crew,” said one family member as she left the private briefing . “How can they expect us to believe anything in there?”
Sakinab Shah, the sister of the MH370 pilot Zaharie Shah, said the report put to rest the theory that her brother was responsible for the plane’s disappearance, either through incompetence or in a suicide mission.
The sister of #MH370 pilot Zaharie Shah says the report had nothing negative about her brother. pic.twitter.com/QNp6HkyrC1
— Sumisha Naidu (@SumishaCNA) July 30, 2018
For Jennifer Chong, whose husband Tan was on board the flight, she said: “To me, it is a helpless day as doors are shut.”
Arriving at the transport ministry this morning, Calvin Shim, whose wife was a stewardess on the flight, was sceptical the report would tell families anything new after more than four years of fruitless searching.
“I do not expect any fresh revelations from this report,” he said. “The black box has not been found. The plane wreckage has not been found.”
He said however he hoped the government would try to find new clues and consider resuming the search.
Updated
Welcome to our live coverage of the release of the long-awaited report into the disappearance of MH370, the Malaysian Airlines plane that disappeared in March 2014 with 239 people on board.
It is hoped that the official investigation team’s report, which will be released to the public this afternoon in Kuala Lumpur, will give answers to one of the world’s most enduring aviation mysteries.
Malaysia’s new government, which took power in May, has pledged total transparency and says the final report by the official safety investigation team – a 19-member body which includes international investigators – will be released unedited.
Families of those onboard MH370 were given the report this morning at the Malaysian transport ministry and briefed by officials.
The Malaysia Airlines jet vanished in March 2014 with 239 people – mostly from China – on board, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
No sign of it was found in a 120,000-square kilometre (46,000-square mile) Indian Ocean search zone. The Australian-led hunt, the largest in aviation history, was suspended in January last year.
US exploration firm Ocean Infinity resumed the hunt at the start of this year on a “no find, no fee” basis, using high-tech drones to scour the seabed. But that search was called off after failing to locate the plane while scouring 125,000sq km of the Indian Ocean.
Only three confirmed fragments of MH370 have been found, all of them on western Indian Ocean shores, including a two-metre wing part known as a flaperon.
