Flight MH370: What Happened To Missing Plane?

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Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing disappeared on 8 March, 2014, with 239 people on board.

Last month, Malaysian authorities officially declared the loss of the Boeing 777 an accident and said all those on board are dead.

Sky News examines some of the explanations that have been put forward to explain what happened to the airliner.

:: Fly Back

A British pilot has theorised that Flight MH370 performed a final "fly-past" of Penang Island before intentionally landing in the sea.

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Gallery: MH370: Timeline Of False Hopes

March 8: At 9am, an hour after flight MH370 is reported missing, rumours spread online that it has landed safely in China

March 8: Search planes spot two oil slicks in the South China Sea but tests show the fuel is not from an aircraft

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March 9: Vietnam search plane spots mystery objects in the South China Sea but they turn out to be unrelated to MH370

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March 10: A moss-covered piece of floating sea debris is mistaken for a yellow life raft

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March 11: Two MH370 passengers travelling with stolen passports are identified as illegal immigrants from Iran and are no longer suspected of terrorist activity

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Captain Simon Hardy believes the plane's captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, made three turns in succession to take "a last emotional look" at his hometown.

Using mathematical "reverse engineering" Hardy concluded MH370 was intentionally landed in water and sank intact about 100 nautical miles from the search zone.

:: Antarctica

MH370 may been deliberately flown off course in the direction of Antarctica, a documentary team believes.

Analysing data, the aviation experts theorised that the Boeing 777 flew for "several hours" after it lost radio contact.

The team says MH370 executed three manoeuvres after its final call, first turning left, then twice more to fly west then south towards Antarctica.

:: Cockpit Fire

A fire in the plane's cockpit led the captain to turn to the west toward Pulau Langkawi, an airstrip on the west coast of Malaysia, claims Canadian pilot Chris Goodfellow.

He claims the loss of transponders and lack of communication makes "perfect sense" in a fire.

He also theorises that the pilots may have lost consciousness due to smoke inhalation.

:: Shot Down

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Gallery: Missing Passengers Of Flight MH370

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Stuntman Ju Kun, 35, was travelling to Beijing to see his two young children before starting work on the new Netflix and Weinstein Company series Marco Polo in Malaysia.

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According to this theory, MH370 could have been shot down during a joint military exercise between the United States and Thailand in the South China Sea.

In his book on the subject, British writer Nigel Cawthorne suggests a military drill, including "live-fire exercises" on land and in the air, went wrong.

The book has been criticised by relatives of the plane's passengers.

:: MH17 Switch

This theory states that Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, not Flight MH17, was shot down over Ukraine in July 2014.

Journalist Jim Stone claims the two planes were swapped and MH370 was downed as part of a Mossad cover up of the Gaza conflict.

The theory has spread on the internet, although Mr Stone fails to explain how the planes were swapped or what the benefit was of the switch.

:: Island Landing

One theory popular in China is that MH370 landed on Diego Garcia, a British-owned island in the Indian Ocean that is home to a major US military base.

Theorists argue that the plane was landed, dismantled and dumped in the sea in order to allow the CIA to gain control of a special person or object on board.

This apparently explains why some relatives reported mobile phones belonging to their loved ones still ringing hours after the disappearance.

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