A Tale of Three Catastrophes

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

-Charles Dickens

Three tragedies, but only two stories.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370/MAS370) was a scheduled international passenger flight that disappeared on 8 March 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, China. Flight 370 last made voice contact with air traffic control at 01:19 MYT (17:19 UTC, 7 March) when it was over the South China Sea, less than an hour after takeoff. The aircraft disappeared from air traffic controllers' radar screens at 01:21.

More than one year later, the investigation is still not resolved – no answer.  No settled, plausible theory.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17) was a scheduled international passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that crashed on 17 July 2014 after being shot down, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board. The Boeing 777-200ER airliner lost contact about 50 km (31 mi) from the Ukraine–Russia border and crashed near Torez in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, 40 km (25 mi) from the border.[3] The crash occurred during the Battle in Shakhtarsk Raion, part of the ongoing war in Donbass, in an area controlled by the Donbass People's Militia.

Over eight months later, the investigation is still not resolved – no answer.  No settled, plausible theory.

Germanwings Flight 9525 (4U9525/GWI18G) was a scheduled international passenger flight from Barcelona–El Prat Airport in Spain to Düsseldorf Airport in Germany, operated by Germanwings, a low-cost airline owned by Lufthansa.

On 24 March 2015 the aircraft, an Airbus A320-200, crashed 100 kilometres (62 mi) northwest of Nice, in the French Alps, after a constant descent that began one minute after the last routine contact with air traffic control and shortly after the plane had reached its assigned cruise altitude. All 144 passengers and six crew members were killed.

Three days later, while not certain, a plausible theory is presented:

The French prosecutor, the French and German aviation authorities, and a spokesperson for Germanwings have said the crash was intentionally caused by the co-pilot, 27-year-old Andreas Lubitz, who was earlier deemed unfit for piloting duty by his doctor for mental health reasons.

One year, no answer; eight months, no answer; three days, a plausible theory.

I guess when authorities want to answer the questions they are able to move pretty quickly.