As you read this, the expected 30-day battery-life of the Malaysia Airlines MH370 black box pinger will have expired, making it more difficult to locate the device in the massive southern Indian Ocean where the Boeing 777-200 is believed to have ended.
MH370 set off from Kuala Lumpur on 8 March, bound for Beijing carrying 239 people. The transponder, which provides ID and location data, stopped operating 40 minutes later, and the last voice contact was made as the plane left Malaysian airspace. The flight never reached Beijing, but what happened and why are matters that have been occupying investigators ever since.
Even if the black box is found, technical information from the flight data recorder (FDR) would not provide all the answers if technical problems were not the cause.
"Aviation experts would be able to pick up a lot of information from the FDR, but if there was deliberate action to turn off the transponders and...