Malaysia Flight 370 has had many theories over the years. The first conspiracy theory is  the possibility of the plane being shot down by a military force, “Korean Air flight 007 was shot down by the Soviet Union in 1983, the US Navy downed an Iranian airliner in 1988, and MH17 appears to have been shot down by mistake” (Castella 1). However, these incidents were reported quickly. It is hard to prove due to the lack of evidence that a government would give, and a government would leave no evidence of any interference (1). According to Sylvia Wrigley, conspiracy theories yell out ‘cover it up and it is hard to keep anyone related to the plane crash quiet, thus the likelihood of Flight MH370 being shot down is a high probability (“Malaysia Airlines MH370: The persistence of conspiracy theories”).

The second conspiracy theory deals with the pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, and the theory that he committed mass suicide. Zaharie Ahmad Shah was a 54-year-old veteran pilot. He was clinically depressed and lonely while also having horrible marriage problems; this adds to the fact that he turned off auto-pilot and fully disabled communications with any airport (“An extensive new report suggests that the missing MH370's pilot was 'clinically depressed' and purposely killed all 239 on board” 1). This begs the question, why would Zaharie want to throw his life away? He had a wife, a couple kids, and a respected career. His wife in the past has reported that he was a happy man, who loved cooking, fishing, and living happily. The writer from the Atlantic, Langewiesche, disproves. “He too believed that Zaharie was guilty, a conclusion he had come to reluctantly. He described the mystery as a pyramid that is broad at the base and one man wide at the top, meaning that the inquiry might have begun with many explanations but ended up with one. He said, "It doesn't make sense. It is hard to reconcile with the man I knew. But it's the necessary conclusion." (Premack 1). 

The third theory is the Stowaway Theory. The theory by Philip Baum involves the space under the flight deck but out of the airplane which could conceal a person, this person could then deactivate the transponder which would, in short, make the plane go silent. He proposes this idea as ‘second-most likely’ to happen (“What happened to MH370? Five theories evaluated”). This is extremely unlikely due to the difficulty of boarding the plane and overcoming the 227 passengers. Another reason this could not have happened was they would have to get into the space underneath the flight deck which would involve taking apart the flight deck of the plane. Yet, many ex-employees hold grudges against the company, which in this case is Malaysia Airlines, and these ex-employees would want some kind of revenge after their terminations. The three theories above could tie together, thus other theories could be involved with the plane’s disappearance. The pilot being the cause of the disappearance is most likely due to his loneliness and depression He texted other women outside of his marriage, and he did deactivate the communications on the plane, thus this theory is the most possible one out of the three (“An extensive new report suggests that the missing MH370's pilot was 'clinically depressed' and purposely killed all 239 on board”). 

The other conspiracy theories discussed are all plausible, but would a military like the United States or Malaysia shoot down one of their own planes? Looking at the past, Russia shot down Malaysia Flight 17, which could mean that MH370 could have been shot down, but this is only speculation because a military as big as the two stated would have an extremely hard time covering up their damage. The pilot theory is going to be most probably due to how much we know about Zaharie Ahmad Shah, thus he must have crashed the plane on purpose as a murder-suicide.