MH370: Plane’s Underwater Locator Beacon Battery Expired One Year Before Disappearance

The locator beacon battery on the data recording box of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 had expired more than one year before the plane seemingly vanished into thin air on March 8, 2014. On the one-year anniversary of that fateful day, the 584-page interim report on the disappearance is notable for how little it found that was out of the ordinary, and could help explain what has been described as the biggest aviation mystery in history. The only truly new and notable aspect of the report is the discovery that the battery on the locator beacon had expired on December 2012, but no one noticed due to a “computer data error,” notes the Associated Press. But the news is not really seen as Earth-shattering, because even though it may have made the search more difficult, the battery in the cockpit voice recorder’s locator beacon was operational.

The report also included extensive profiles of the plane’s captain and crew amid speculation that the plane may have been deliberately diverted. But the report found nothing unusual. “There were no behavioral signs of social isolation, change in habits or interest, self-neglect, drug or alcohol abuse of the Captain, First Officer and the Cabin Crew,” according to the report. There were also no unusual weather patterns at the time of the disappearance.

Family members were quick to express their anger at the report, saying it offers no new information that could help explain what happened. Some family members of MH370 passengers believe the government is hiding information, reports the BBC. “It’s just taking a lot of people’s emotion on a big merry-go-round. It’s a bit cruel,” Raymund Gagarin, whose cousin Anne Daisy was a passenger, said. Against all hope, some continue to believe in the theory that the plane was diverted and its passengers taken off the plane. Authorities, however, continue to insist the most likely scenario is that it crashed into the southern Indian Ocean.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said the country remains committed to finding the missing plane. “The disappearance of MH370 is without precedent, and so too is the search—by far the most complex and technically challenging in aviation history,” Najib said in a statement quoted by Reuters. Earlier, Malaysia’s transport minister had said that if nothing is found by May, investigators will have to “go back to the drawing board,” reports the Independent. In Australia, meanwhile, the government vowed to continue the search even if nothing is found in the current search area. “We owe it to the families of the dead, we owe it to the traveling public, to do whatever we reasonably can to resolve this mystery,” Prime Minister Tony Abbot said, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.