How Can An Airliner Just Disappear?

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: How Can an Airliner Just Disappear? -- Popular Mechanics

Improvements suggested after similar midair disaster never made their way into this Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777.

The clock is ticking on the search for clues to what caused a Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines 777-200 to vanish suddenly from radar screens last weekend, forty minutes after leaving Kuala Lumpur. As leads and potential evidence surfaced and just as quickly fizzled, a flotilla of 40 ships from nine countries as well as two dozen aircraft scoured an area within a 50 nautical mile radius of Flight 370's last known position.

The mystery has seemed to deepen days after the event, and the possibility that the answers lay at the bottom of the sea in the plane's black boxes is ratcheting up the pressure. As anyone who has followed the course of similar mid-air catastrophes knows, these recorders emit a ping to guide rescuers that lasts about one month. Failure to find them before the battery dies means a lengthy and frustrating probe for the causes of the disaster.

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My Comment: It is clear that the aircraft had a catastrophic failure. The question that needs to be answered is .... what exactly happened.