All right, admit it. Whenever you fly, there's kind of a nagging little thought in the back of your

head that starts with the words, what if? But you've got to get to your destination, right? So you put

those thoughts on do not disturb, and you get where you're going. Now, imagine getting on a huge jet,

taking off, and just completely disappearing. Plains crash, really

infrequently, but we pretty much always know where and why, eventually. But that was not the

case with Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. It took off from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014,

and was never seen again. I'm Patty Steele. The people missing,

the search, what may have happened, and the way that disappearance changed the way we fly forever.

That's next on the backstory. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

The backstory is back. All right, it's 1241 a.m. when Malaysia Airlines flight 370 takes off from Kuala Lumpur, headed for Beijing, China.

239 people are on board on a six-hour overnight flight.

It's a beautiful, clear night,

and the wide-body Boeing 777, one of the safest planes ever built,

has two experienced pilots at the controls.

In the cabin, families, business travelers, students, nothing unusual. The lights are dimmed as

people settle in for the flight. Then, just 40 minutes later, at 119 a.m., the captain radio's air

traffic control. He says, good night, Malaysia 370. Two minutes after that, the plane's transponder, its digital identity, goes dark.

On radar screens, the aircraft vanishes into thin air.

At first, controllers assume it's a glitch.

Planes don't just disappear, except this one did.

At 1.21 a.m., the jet and those lives simply stop existing.

There's no distress call, no explosion, and no explanation.

...