Malaysia Releases Data on Flight 370's Final Hours

The Malaysian government today released 45 pages of raw satellite data it used to determine the flight path of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, information long sought by some of the relatives of the 239 people on board the plane. More than three months after the plane went missing en route to Beijing, no trace of it has been found, leading to continued speculation over its fate. An international investigation team led by Malaysia has concluded that it flew south after it was last spotted on Malaysian military radar about 90 minutes after takeoff and ended up in the southern Indian Ocean off Australia.

The projected flight path was based on complex calculations derived in part from hourly transmissions between the plane and a communications satellite, but some family members who have been critical of the Malaysian government's handling of the incident say they want independent experts to review the data. Several experts in physics, satellite technology, and mathematics have said that based on the information released so far, they have been unable to verify the investigation team's conclusions. (More Malaysia Airlines stories.)