[INFOGRAPHIC] A Total 84 Planes Have Vanished Off The Face Of The Earth Since 1948
MAS MH370 is the 84th plane to mysteriously disappear since 1948, and one Boeing 727 that took off in 1985 wasn't discovered until 2006.
By Sadho Ram — 17 Aug 2014, 07:06 PM — Updated almost 10 years ago
It's been nine months, yet the mystery behind the disappearance of MAS MH370 hasn't gotten any less baffling since the plane, carrying 239 people onboard, went off-radar on 8 March 2014
It is shocking and strange. But it's far from the first time an aircraft has seemed to vanish off the face of the earth.
Since 1948, some 83 aircraft have been declared "missing," according to data compiled by the Aviation Safety Network. That means no trace of bodies or debris from these flights capable of carrying 14 or more passengers has ever been found.
This new map by Bloomberg Visual Data charts the disappearances and large aircraft searches onwards 1948
It leaves us with far more questions than answers--whether these vanished planes are miles deep on an ocean floor or stranded on enchanted islands a la Lost, we may never know. Conspiracy theories about Flight 370 abound, of course--promoted even by the likes of Rupert Murdoch.
In the 1940s and '50s, when communication technology was still in its primitive stages, such disappearances were more common. But there's only one flight, apart from the still missing MH370, in recent history that disappeared without a trace. In 2007, it took a team of 3,600 people 10 days to locate Adam Air Flight 574 after it crashed into the sea near Sulawesi Island in Indonesia, and it took even more time to figure out the cause of the crash (pilot error and a faulty navigation device).
No discernible patterns emerge on this map, besides the fact that the most commonly disappeared plane model is the Douglas DC-3. 19 of which have gone missing - and that five aircraft were swallowed up in or around the supposedly paranormal Bermuda Triangle. What does that teach us, other than that the paranoid should perhaps avoid flying on DC-3s over the Bermuda Triangle?
The history of flight disappearances suggests that even if MH370 isn't located in the near future, it could resurface decades down the line. For example:
One Boeing 727 that took off in 1985 wasn't discovered until 2006, when a group of hikers found its wreckage in a glacier on Mount Illimani, Bolivia's second-highest peak.