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Anyone following this news story? Definitely one of the biggest aviation mysteries, or mysteries in general, in modern times. This link provides a good start to the whole thing, as well as the Wikipedia article, but the summary so far is this: On March 8, a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 operating flight MH370 departed Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 12.40 AM local time. Its destination was Beijing, China, where it was to land at 6.30 AM local time, carrying 239 people including 12 crewmembers. The majority of the passengers were from China, mainly artists who had been at a calligraphy exhibition in Kuala Lumpur, along with their families. The were many Malaysians aboard as well, followed by a few from Australia, New Zealand, France, the US, Canada and other countries. However, about an hour into the flight, about 100 miles away from the east coast of peninsular Malaysia and over the South China Sea, the plane disappeared from radar, and its transponder was shut off. It last appeared on radar at 1.30 AM, and the last message heard from the crew, was "alright, good night". There were no distress signals sent out or signs of technical problems. Worth noting is that the Boeing 777 is generally considered a very safe aircraft (only 3 major incidents since entering service in 1995), Malaysia Airlines itself has a good safety record (3 accidents with fatalities since beginning operations in 1972), and weather conditions were also perfectly fine. Exactly what happened to the plane next is so far unknown - there are only a few clues, all of which are rather unsettling. Initially, on March 9, Malaysia Airlines and the Malaysian government announced that all contact was lost, and tried combing the South China Sea to search for it, where it may have crashed - the search effort was assisted by military forces from many countries such as Singapore, Vietnam, China, the US and others. It was also discovered that two of the passengers on board had been using stolen passports from an Italian and Austrian respectively - CCTV footage later revealed that the two were Iranians, aged 19 and 29. This sparked fears of a hijacking, but the two men were not linked to terrorism in any way and are believed to wanting to seek asylum in Europe. Later though it emerged that Malaysian military radar may have picked up what could have been MH370, flying west, over to the west side of peninsular Malaysia and towards the Malacca Strait, at 2.40 AM, an hour after all communications with the aircraft ceased. As a result, search efforts have since expanded to that area as well. Since then, we've found out that the last satellite ping from the aircraft was at 8.11 AM, about an hour after its fuel should have run out. The ping's origin was found to possibly emerged from two possible flight corridors according to the map below: The northern corridor heads into Central Asia, going into as far as Kazahkstan, while the southern corridor heads into the relatively isolated southern Indian Ocean, which only has a few tiny islands such as the Kergeulen islands. The exact location of the ping unfortunately could not be narrowed down further than the paths shown. The case has also become a criminal investigation when it was discovered that the transponder had been deliberately deactivated, and that it happened before, instead of after, the final message that said "Alright, goodnight", meaning that theories of a hijacking are suddenly more credible now. What's more, the estimated flight path of the aircraft could only have been followed by someone who was a flight expert, which has shifted focus onto the pilot and co-pilot. The pilot, 53 year old Zaharie Ahmad Shah, was a veteran of Malaysia Airlines who joined in 1981 and had over 18,000 flight hours, while his 27 year old co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid had 2700 flight hours. From info gathered on his Facebook page and from close friends, Zaharie was an aviation enthusiast who owned many RC planes and even a custom-made flight simulator. Meanwhile, Fariq had been planning to marry some time soon, although in 2011 he had apparently invited young women into his cockpit, against regulations. More about the two of them here. There's little else to go on beyond everything above. If it really had been hijacked, it's not clear which path the plane could have taken - the northern corridor heads over a number of countries including China (who are anxious to look for the plane considering most of the passengers were Chinese) and it's extremely difficult to evade so many radars in a large aircraft like the 777. Meanwhile, the southern Indian Ocean is 4km deep and one of the most isolated places in the world, with nowhere they could have conceivably landed undetected - if it had headed there, it would have run out of fuel thousands of miles from any major settlement and crashed into the water without any satellite or passing ship or plane noticing them. With so few concrete answers, speculation has also been flying around centering around motives for a hijacking or even possibly pilot suicide. A few of them include: 1) Zaharie was known to be a supporter of Malaysian opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim. Just a day before the flight, Anwar had been convicted and sentenced to 5 years of sodomy, even though that law is rarely enforced and he had been acquitted of it years before, and this was just weeks before a local election in which he was a popular candidate - many people view it as a politically motivated sentencing by the ruling coalition which has been in power since 1957. 2) Uyghur separatists. Some of the Uyghur people, who live in Xinjiang in northwestern China, have been in conflict with the Chinese government for years. The most recent case involving them was a mass stabbing in Kunming that killed 33 people on March 1, just a week before Flight MH370. As a Malaysian, I can't say if any of these theories are credible, though the latter is more believable to me than the former. Nor am I sure how to feel that my country, especially the Malaysian government, has come under international media attention through a tragic mystery like this. All I know is that this is definitely not over yet - stay tuned.

Seems like Sonic Team has a little surprise up its sleeve for the upcoming Nintendo show, Space World, in Japan. The developer will be showing off four games, three of which we know about (Phantasy Star Online for Gamecube and Sonic Advance and Puyo Puyo for Game Boy Advance). Which leaves one more unannounced title to speculate about. Interesting. Could the Gamecube be getting a Sonic game, perhaps? View full story