MH370 It has been 50 days since Beijing-bound MH370 went missing on March 8 with all 239 persons on board. Besides the obvious questions of where the plane has gone and how it got there, many other questions remain unanswered.

Foremost is how the Malaysian military radar claimed they spotted an unidentified aircraft flying across Malaysian airspace on the day MH370 went missing, but no action was taken to inform the international search and rescue (SAR) team immediately.

Instead, the Malaysian authorities vaguely announced it was expanding the search area into the Straits of Malacca “in accordance to search and rescue standard operating procedures” later that night.

Malaysian search teams to begin searching the Straits of Malacca on Day 2 while the SAR team was still scouring the South China Sea in belief that the plane had possibly crashed off the coast of Vietnam.

The fact that an unidentified aircraft had been spotted on radar wasn’t officially announced until Day 5 on March 12.

Jets scrambled or not?

By Day 7, the SAR team finally abandoned the South China Sea search after satellite data showed conclusively that the aircraft had flown for hours in the direction of the Indian Ocean after it went missing, and the unidentified aircraft turned out to be MH370.

Had the first few days of the search been a multinational wild goose chase?

It should be noted at with previous cases of stray aircraft such as the 2005 Helios Airways Flight 522 crash and several cases involving chartered flights, air force fighters were scrambled to identify the problem after air traffic controllers could not contact the aircraft by radio.

The fighter pilots were able look at the cockpit and saw that the pilots of the stray aircraft have lost consciousness.

According to a CNN report citing a Malaysian army source, RMAF did scramble its jets after the plane but Defence Minister Hishammuddin has denied the April 10 report despite CNN standing by it.

Who is lying, DAP parliamentarian Lim Kit Siang rightfully asked.

Questions surrounding why Malaysia did not alert the SAR team on Day 1 about MH370 flying over its airspace remain unsatisfactorily answered till today.

According to Reuters on April 11, the government has reportedly initiated a probe into the initial confusion and any mistakes that led to a week-long search in the wrong ocean.

Inmarsat data now questioned

There had been various theories regarding MH370’s flight path. Some, such as one reported by Reuters, involve a series of turns over the Straits of Malacca before leaving radar coverage. The New Straits Times claimed that it had flown low to avoid radar.

To date, there is no official statement on aircraft’s actual flight path from the moment it went missing up to the point it left radar coverage apart from where and when it was last seen – 200 nautical miles (370 kilometres) northwest of Penang.

On Day 21 with the search in the South Indian Ocean already underway, the search area was dramatically shifted by 1,100 kilometres. The Wall Street Journal quoted insiders saying that this was due to poor coordination within the investigation team working separately to determine the aircraft’s final location.

So far, there is no official account of what happened other than that aircraft performance has been taken into account.

Family members of MH370’s passengers have expressed doubt on the analysis of Inmarsat data that Prime Minister Najib Razak relied on to declare, some say with questionable haste, that the plane had "ended in the southern Indian Ocean".

The families have demanded the Inmarsat data to be released for independent analysis.

As with many other requests for technical information, this has yet to be done.

Mystery mangosteens more than fruit?

MH370’s cargo manifest remains a secret, and its contents are unknown besides disclosure of an uncharacteristically large shipment of mangosteens , which are not in season in March, and potentially hazardous lithium-ion batteries (MAS has assured that the batteries have been packed in a manner that makes it safe, in accordance to regulations).

Other unanswered questions include a fire that broke out at MAS's avionics workshop on March 26, and former Wangsa Maju MP Wee Choo Keong's query if there was sabotage was never addressed.

Also since denying New Straits Times ' report on April 12 that the co-pilot had allegedly attempted to make a call while the plane was flying close to Penang, the government has not released any new information on the matter.

The lack of any answers and the government's apparent eagerness to claim jurisdiction of the black box has prompted Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim to ask if the government is trying to hide anything.

The investigation team is due to release its preliminary report on MH370 next week, which it had already submitted to the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

However, acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein had cautioned that its contents are “nothing exciting” because it contains only preliminary data.