Former Queensland Police Service Administration Officer, 54-year-old Mary Burrows, who worked at the Oxley Police Academy for 16 years, looked forward to the simple pleasures of retirement… downsizing, spending time with family, the birth of her first grandchild, and travel. What she didn’t anticipate was vanishing from the face of the Earth.
On 8 March 2014, Mary boarded the ill-fated Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 with her husband Rod and friends, another Brisbane couple, Catherine and Robert Lawton. Most people are aware of the following details. Their flight departed Kuala Lumpur at 12:41 am local time, bound for Beijing, reaching a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet (10,700 metres) at 1:01 am. ACARS data from the plane was last transmitted at 1:07 am. The captain’s last voice transmission was shortly after at 1:19 am. Two minutes later, the plane’s transponder, which communicated with air traffic control, was turned off just as the plane entered no man’s land… before entering Vietnamese airspace over the South China Sea.
At 1:30 am the flight appeared on Malaysian military and civilian radar. It was then tracked as it turned around and flew southwest over the Malay Peninsula, and then Northwest over the Strait of Malacca. At 2:22 am Malaysian military radar lost contact, although an Inmarsat satellite over the Indian Ocean received signals until 8:11 am. A partial ping was later found at 8:19 am, consistent with the location of the acoustic pings. The last such partial ping was on April 8, 2014.
Evidence
On July 29, 2015, the first piece of debris from a Boeing 777 was found on the French Island of Réunion in the western Indian Ocean. Serial numbers convinced French authorities that the flaperon, photographed above, came from Flight MH370. One of three numbers found on the part matched up with the plane’s serial number, 9M-MRO. Is this sufficient evidence? A Chinese water bottle, an Indonesian cleaning product and what is thought to have been the remains of a suitcase were found in the same area. Is this too construed as evidence?
Altogether, another 26 pieces of debris were found on the islands of Mauritius, Madagascar and on the coast of Africa at Tanzania, South Africa, and Mozambique over the coming months. Three pieces were identified as ‘almost certainly’ to come from the missing plane plus another 17 pieces were deemed ‘likely.’
One of the largest pieces of debris found, the right outboard flap of a Boeing 777, photographed below by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, had identification numbers and date stamps that are said to tally with parts on the missing plane.
Despite a long and costly search covering thousands of square kilometres, the wreckage of Flight MH370 was never found. The coordinated efforts of Malaysia, China and Australia ended in January 2017, with no conclusion drawn as to what happened to flight MH370.
From the many parts found to date, it is obvious that debris from a crashed Boeing 777 has been found but many question if it is Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370. One claim is evident, MH370 is currently the greatest unsolved mystery in aviation history.
Lasting Memories
A children’s park and playground that held happy memories for the Burrows family was re-named ‘Rod and Mary Burrows Park’ in 2016. Karla McMaster, photographed above with her brother Jayden Burrows, said that her father would be ‘completely chuffed’ to have the park named after him, and her mother would be ‘more than a little bit embarrassed.’
On the 10th anniversary of the downing of Flight MH370, we extend our condolences to the Burrows family, who also tragically lost a family member on Flight MH17 which was shot down over the Ukraine in 2017. Mary Burrows faithfully served at the Oxley Police Academy for 16 years. May Mary, her husband Rod, and all lost on Flight MH370 rest in peace.
This story was written by Debra Austin, a former Museum Assistant at the Queensland Police Museum, from the best resources available at the time of writing.
“FROM the VAULT – Vanished” by the Queensland Police Service is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (BY) 2.5 Australia Licence. Permissions may be available beyond the scope of this licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/au/legalcode
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