Good Night, Malaysia 370

Good Night, Malaysia 370 is a personal project exploring grief through a sensitive investigation. Ten years after the disappearance of flight MH370, I retraced its route, searching for traces and weaving together diverse image sources.

On 8 March 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared with 239 people on board. Ten years later, in March 2024, the official investigation remained unresolved: no bodies, no wreckage—only hypotheses and grey areas in a world saturated with technology and surveillance.

Among the passengers was Yan, an 18-year-old French girl and my friend.

The last images of her—a photo posted on Instagram, then airport surveillance footage—became the intimate starting point of my photographic project, suspended between memory and the impossibility of mourning.

Ten years later, in 2024, I flew once more from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with Malaysia Airlines, on the anniversary of the disappearance.

At the airport, I met pilots, engineers, journalists, and families of victims, and I was confronted with conflicting accounts: accident, deliberate act, interception, cover-up… Everyone was still searching for an elusive truth.

Rather than adding another theory to this unresolved disappearance, the project propose a visual investigation combining documentary and fiction, personal images and archives. My photographs bore the imprint of the connected world in which they were made.

Faced with emptiness, they became a fragile yet necessary thread—capable of resisting oblivion and accompanying mourning, from night toward light.

© Alexandra Dautel - Taxis drivers waiting in Beijing, personal photography, March 2024
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Taxis drivers waiting in Beijing, personal photography, March 2024

© Alexandra Dautel - Arriving in Kuala Lumpur, personal photography, March 2024
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Arriving in Kuala Lumpur, personal photography, March 2024

© Alexandra Dautel - During my flight from KL to Beijing, personal photography, March 2024
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During my flight from KL to Beijing, personal photography, March 2024

© Alexandra Dautel - Kuala Lumpur Airport, personal photography, March 2024
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Kuala Lumpur Airport, personal photography, March 2024

© Alexandra Dautel - During my flight, personal photography, March 2024
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During my flight, personal photography, March 2024

© Alexandra Dautel - Archive image, from the FBI, confidential pilot's mouse taken at his home in 2014
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Archive image, from the FBI, confidential pilot's mouse taken at his home in 2014

© Alexandra Dautel - BEA (bureau enquête accident) in Le Bourget, France, showing my how black boxes works, 2025
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BEA (bureau enquête accident) in Le Bourget, France, showing my how black boxes works, 2025

© Alexandra Dautel - Beijing car and extract document, collage, 2024-2025
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Beijing car and extract document, collage, 2024-2025

© Alexandra Dautel - Arriving in Beijing, personal photography, March 2024
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Arriving in Beijing, personal photography, March 2024

© Alexandra Dautel - Malaysia Airlines merch, personal photography, 2026
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Malaysia Airlines merch, personal photography, 2026

© Alexandra Dautel - Beijing and me refleting in the window, personal photograph, March 2024
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Beijing and me refleting in the window, personal photograph, March 2024

© Alexandra Dautel - Archives documents, Malaysian Government, 2014-2016
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Archives documents, Malaysian Government, 2014-2016

© Alexandra Dautel - Transcript from the cockpit, 2014
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Transcript from the cockpit, 2014

© Alexandra Dautel - Arriving in Beijing with Malaysia Airlines flight, personal photograph, March 2024
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Arriving in Beijing with Malaysia Airlines flight, personal photograph, March 2024

© Alexandra Dautel - During my flight from KL to Beijing, March 2024
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During my flight from KL to Beijing, March 2024

© Alexandra Dautel - Image from the Good Night, Malaysia 370 photography project
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During the families commemoration of the 10th years, Malaysian Minister announcing the searches will resume, Kuala Lumpur, March 2024

© Alexandra Dautel - Victim's family, Nathan had his wife on the plane. Personal photograph, Kuala Lumpur, March 2024
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Victim's family, Nathan had his wife on the plane. Personal photograph, Kuala Lumpur, March 2024

© Alexandra Dautel - CCTV from the passengers entering the plane, my friend with her green suitcase and purple bagpack, March 2014
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CCTV from the passengers entering the plane, my friend with her green suitcase and purple bagpack, March 2014

© Alexandra Dautel - Arriving in Kuala Lumpur, facing the airport, personal photograph, March 2024
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Arriving in Kuala Lumpur, facing the airport, personal photograph, March 2024

© Alexandra Dautel - Searches in the South Indian Ocean, 2015, archive image
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Searches in the South Indian Ocean, 2015, archive image