The curious case of MH370! 5 things we know and don't know about it

Although Malaysian authorities have confirmed on Thursday that debris found on the island of Reunion was from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, still there are questions to be answered.

It is now clear that the airline crashed in the Indian Ocean, but the reason behind the disaster remains unknown, reported AFP.

Below are key things we know, and still don't know about the mysterious case of MH370.

We know:

1. On March 8, 2014, MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur with 227 passengers and 12 crew members at 12:41 a.m., climbing out over the South China Sea on a clear night, bound for Beijing.

2. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, a highly respected airman with 33 years of experience at the state flag carrier, was its pilot. Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, was his co-pilot.

3. Just before MH370 was to pass into Vietnam's air-traffic control region, someone in the cockpit sent the final voice message back to Malaysian controllers: "Good night, Malaysian Three Seven Zero," at 1:19 a.m.

4. Around 1:30 a.m., tracking systems such as the jet's transponder were shut off, yet the plane appeared on military radar until 2:15 a.m. as it turned back over Malaysia and flew out to the Indian Ocean.

5. A wing part found on Reunion over 16 months after the plane disappeared came from MH370, according to Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, citing international investigators on Thursday.

We do not know:

1. No idea what caused the plane to divert since neither the cockpit crew nor the plane's monitoring systems gave any sign of trouble prior to that, and the weather was clear that night.

2. No idea whether one of the cockpit crew was involved, considered by many experts to be the most likely explanation. Zaharie was a known supporter of Malaysia's opposition, and it was later found that Fariq had let passengers into the cockpit on an earlier flight, breaching safety rules. But investigators say nothing in either man's background suggests a desire to commit mass murder.

3. No idea if a hijack or terror attack was responsible, since there has never been a claim of responsibility by any group or individual.

4. No clue why the plane's tracking systems were switched off and by whom, an act that Malaysia has said appeared to be "deliberate."

5. No clue where MH370 exactly went down, although the discovery of the wing part will help confirm the current Indian Ocean search area, meaning we are not much closer to recovering the aircraft's black box and analysing it for clues as to what caused its disappearance.

(Image: Reuters)