A mystery remains unsolved
Over 200 million searches have been made for 'mh370' as we tried to make sense of what happened.
Malaysia Airlines MH370
Contact lost March 8, 2014, 2:15 MYT
Flight MH370, carrying 239 people, departed from Kuala Lumpur on March 7. Five hours after contact was lost, the aircraft was reported missing. As widening search efforts proved futile, the hopes of the families of the crew and passengers began to fade, and 'malaysia airlines' became the year’s ninth-highest global spike.
Refusing to give up
The world still wanted answers, and 14x more searches were made for 'mh370 found' than for 'mh370 lost.'
Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, has a population of 1.6 million people. When the MH370 incident happened, searches for the city doubled.
Founded in 1946, Malaysia Airlines flies to 60 destinations worldwide. Searches for the airline spiked over 50x once news of the missing plane broke.
An investigation covering 60,000 km²
After the search zone was extended beyond the South China Sea, searches for 'indian ocean' spiked by over 7x, and 'gulf of thailand' by over 11x.
Glimmers of hope
Searches for 'maldives' doubled after a group of locals were reported to have spotted a low-flying jet.
Search and speculation
The term 'conspiracy theories' doubled soon after MH370 disappeared. Diego Garcia, an atoll in the Indian Ocean, spiked 16x after suggestions that the plane had landed at the island's US Navy base.
Beyond belief
'Mh370' peaked again in July after a missile downed another Malaysia Airlines plane, Flight MH17, in Ukraine.
Our top searches saw us hoping for a breakthrough:
- MH370 news
- MH370 found
- MH370 latest news
- MH370 update
- MH370 missing
#PrayforMH370
This hashtag became a symbol of support for the families of those yet to be found. The city most searching the phrase was Kuala Lumpur, where the plane originally departed.
"We will not stop until the plane is found. My thoughts and prayers are with the families of passengers and crew."
—Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak
Searches for the prime minister's name tripled in the weeks after the plane disappeared.