One of the largest searches, even named the largest search on the planet, is for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370).

This flight was scheduled at 07:24 MST on March 8, 2014. Malaysia Airlines reported that the Boeing 777-200ER had lost contact with Air Traffic Control outside Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia. The aircraft had last been heard from at 01:20, less than an hour after takeoff. It carried 12 Malaysian crew members and 227 passengers from 14 nations.

Beginning with idle speculation, the mystery of MH370 has become a full-fledged search involving 24 countries, including the United States. Many answers and theories were being thrown out such as the stolen passports, a catastrophic structural failure of the airframe, bad weather, pilot disorientation, failure of both engines, a bomb, hijacking, pilot suicide, accidental shoot-down by some country’s military, and more.

Unfortunately, it’s been over 30 days and the Boeing has not been found. The search area, stretching thousands of miles from Kazakhstan to the Indian Ocean, has Malaysian officials and authorities from 24 other nations confused and weary.

Hope has been placed upon the pings of “black boxes.” These are emergency boxes that emit pings in response to a crash or other emergencies. However, they are only warranted to work for 30 days and it has well passed. With recent discovery of signals reported as consistent with MH370’s black box off the Western Coast of Australia, the search area has been narrowed significantly.

That does not change the fact that it’s been over 30 days; officials fear the black box batteries have now died and if no more pings are detected soon, a robotic submersible will be sent down to slowly scour the ocean floor for wreckage.

This tragedy has left families and relatives unanswered and heartbroken. 227 loved ones are missing. All hope is going towards solving this mystery and that they may receive closure.