On the 3rd of May 2007, 3 year old Madeleine McCann mysteriously vanished from her holiday apartment, making headlines within 24 hours worldwide. With millions of people looking and trying to piece together the events of that fateful night, there have been no actual findings as of yet. This article will unfold Madeleine’s previous life, a timeline of her final moments before the disappearance, and any interesting information we have discovered since. 

Madeleine's Life 

Name : Madeleine Beth McCann

DOB : 12th May 2003, Leicester, England

Parents : Kate McCann, Gerry McCann

Siblings : Amelie McCann, Sean McCann

Astrological Sign : Taurus

Appearance : Blonde hair, green-blue eyes, with small details such as a distinctive brown mark in the iris of her right eye. 

Madeleine’s parents quotes during the first interviews after the disappearance : “Before Madeleine was taken, we felt we had managed to achieve our little perfect nuclear family of five.”

The Disappearance

The McCann family arrived on 28th of April 2007 for there seven-night stay in Praia De Luz, Portugal, only to experience their worst nightmare. 

The last moments before the disappearance went as follows :

• Her parents go for dinner with a group of friends at a restaurant in the complex. Madeleine - with her younger brother and sister (twins) stay in the apartment sleeping, just 100 yards away. 

•  The group of adults had devised a rota-system to check     on all their children during the evening. 

• When it is the turn of Kate McCann (Madeleine's mum), she discovers, only her daughter, Madeline, is gone.

• Police are called, along with staff and guests at the complex helping to search for her until daybreak.

• Border police and airport staff are put on alert, with hundreds of volunteers joining efforts to find Madeleine in the following days.

Follow-up Information

With hundreds of volunteers, investigations, and searches across different parts of the UK and Portugal, has led to nothing as of yet. The most recent search of the Arade Dam reservoir and surrounding areas in Southern Portugal, resulted only with the findings of some material, which will be expertly analysed in Germany. 

Following all this, journalists and investigators all ask the same question - 

“Why only take Madeleine, but leave her 2 siblings, when they were all in the same hotel room at the same time, was this really an accident, or was it planned all along?”

This disappearance has been one of the largest disappearances ever known to the world, with the case not only captivating, but horrifying the whole of Europe, along with Portugal. 3rd May will mark 17 years since that fateful night Madeleine went missing, with 12th May also marking her 17th birthday. One day Madeleine’s family, and the whole world hope to find out the real truth about the story of Madeleine McCann. 

Article by Caera Neeson (S2)

The disappearance of Flight MH370 shocked the whole world on 8th of March 2014, when it mysteriously disappeared from Malaysia Airlines radar. With 227 passengers, and 12 crew aboard, this became an urgent worldwide search to find not only the people, but the plane itself. This article will dive deep into the happenings of this mysterious disappearance, and hopefully find some answers. 

Flight MH370 Plans. 

Flight MH370 was planned to depart from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia, and arrive at Beijing Capital International Airport in China at approximately 6:30am. However these plans were put into jeopardy when the plane mysteriously vanished from radar. 

The Disappearance.  

Less than an hour into the flight, Air Traffic Control lost contact with Flight MH370, after it was even tracked by Military Radar crossing the Malay Peninsula, and was located over the Andaman Sea. Some analysis taking place investigating the automated communications between the aircraft and a Satellite Communications Network has shown that the aircraft flew into the South Indian Ocean, just prior to all sources of communication being completely cut off shortly after 8:19am. 

The Search.

In the first few weeks after the plane went off grid, the search focused on parts of Southeast Asia waters, along with a missing case for the aircraft being officially announced ‘opened’. After weeks of searching, Malaysia finally made a breakthrough announcing that Flight MH370 could have flown on for several hours after going off radar, with around 2-3 hours of battery left to fly, which sparked lots more searches, analysis, and especially curiosity. Later in 2023, the biggest findings yet were revealed : an American wreckage hunter- Blaine Gibson has discovered a newly found piece of debris on a beach just on the shore of Madagascar, that proves the pilot lowered the plane’s landing gear, jus before it predictably landed in the ocean, which also supports the theory that the aircraft was indeed crashed deliberately, and could have been potential suicide. 

Flight MH370 has certainly caused questions, tragedy, and curiosity. We have had many breakthroughs, but the real question is : “Will we ever find the real truth of what happened to Flight MH370?” 

Article by Caera Neeson (S2)