On December 28th, 2014, AirAsia flight QZ8501 lost contact with air traffic control during a morning flight to Singapore. Many immediately saw similarities between its disappearance and the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 earlier this year.
The wreckage of the AirAsia flight was found a few days later close to where the plane lost contact. All 162 people on board had perished. We may have found the tragic impact point where AirAsia crashed, but the mystery of Flight 370 and many other plane disappearances through recent history remain open cases.
1. The Star Tiger disappeared without a trace during its flight to Bermuda in 1948. It was the first aircraft to fall victim to the so-called Bermuda Triangle.
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2. In the same year as the Star Tiger, another BSAA vessel, the Star Ariel, vanished. It also disappeared close to the Bermuda islands. This prompted more than a few conspiracy theories about how the two missing flights were linked.
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3. Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2501 disappeared somewhere around Lake Michigan in 1950. The wreckage was still never found after 65 years.
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4. Pan Am Flight 7 was a trip meant to go around the world from San Francisco to Philadelphia. The plane disappeared somewhere between California and Hawaii. After mounting one of the biggest search parties ever, the wreckage was found floating on the ocean. There were no survivors.
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5. In 1979, a Boeing 707-323C cargo vehicle disappeared en route to Brazil. Neither the wreckage of the plane, the bodies of the 6 crew members, or the 153 paintings by famous Japanese artist Manabu Mabe were found.
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6. Back in March of 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 lost contact and disappeared before reaching its destination in Beijing. Despite all of our advanced technology, no trace of the plane has been found.
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It’s crazy that we can still lose planes en route in a world with immense technologies like Google Maps satellites and GPS. Could it be that the world is much bigger than we thought, or something beyond our human comprehension is happening here? We may never know.
