KL-Beijing flight missing: search underway

Reuters: A Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew crashed in the South China Sea on Saturday, Vietnamese state media said, quoting a senior naval official.

The Boeing 777-200ER flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing had been missing for hours when Vietnam's Tuoi Tre news quoted Admiral Ngo Van Phat as saying he had asked boats from an island off south Vietnam to rush to the crash site.

If the report is confirmed, it would mark the U.S.-built airliner's deadliest crash since entering service 19 years ago.

Malaysia Airlines had yet to confirm that the aircraft had crashed. It said earlier in the day that no distress signal had been given and cited early speculation that the plane may have landed in Nanming in southern China.

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China.org.cn: According to a volunteer receptionist, the relatives of the passengers on the missing plane remain waiting in the arrival hall. No airport officials have yet been willing to comment on the issue.

Hundreds of journalists from both domestic and international press agencies are waiting in a small room at Beijing's Lido Hotel for the press conference to start.

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Thanhnien News: A Malaysia Airlines plane en route to China that went missing on Saturday morning with 239 people on board was found crashing off Vietnam’s southern island, a senior navy official has confirmed.

Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper quoted Rear Admiral Ngo Van Phat, political commissar of the Fifth Naval Region as saying that they detected the ill-fated airplane some 153 nautical miles (300 kilometers) from Tho Chu Island. The island is located 55 nautical miles (102 km) southwest of the famous resort island of Phu Quoc. The sea water is located between Vietnam and Malaysia.

Phat said Vietnamese officials are ready for a rescue mission once they receive orders from related agencies

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The security guards are on duty on March 8, 2014, at the Terminal 3 of Beijing Capital International Airport, the scheduled destination of the missing Malaysian flight HM370.  [Photo by Wu Jin/China.org.cn]

 

Malaysia Airlines:

Just to recap on the details given earlier by the airline. Here are the number of passengers from each country believed to make up the 227 on board:

China: 154
Malaysia: 38
Indonesia: 12
Australia: 7
US: 4
France: 3
New Zealand: 2
Ukraine: 2
Canada: 2
Italy, Netherlands, Austria: 1 each

There are also 12 crew, of which we know the pilot, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, and first officer Fariq Ab. Hamid, are both Malaysian.

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Reuters: No signal had been picked up from a Malaysia Airlines Boeing B777-200 aircraft flight carrying 239 passengers and crew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, a Vietnamese rescue official said on Saturday.

"We have been seeking but no signal from the plane yet," Pham Hien, director of a Vietnam maritime search and rescue coordination centre in Vung Tau, told Reuters by telephone.

Vietnamese and Chinese media had reported that a signal from the plane had been picked up. The reports did not identify what kind of signal.

"The information on local media about the signal near the Cape Ca Mau was inaccurate," Pham said.

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One Vietnamese rescue official announced the missing Malaysian plane's signal has been detected, according to the latest information released by Xinhua News Agency.

The official told local VNExpress that the aircraft's signal has been detected at some 120 nautical miles southwest of Vietnam's southernmost Ca Mau province.

The rough location where the missing Malaysian HM370 flight signal has been detected. [Sina]

A Malaysian passenger plane carrying 239 people lost all contact with air traffic control shortly after leaving Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur, the carrier said on earlier Saturday morning.

The B777-200 aircraft departed Kuala Lumpur at 00:41 a.m. on Saturday, and was expected to land in Beijing at 6:30 a.m. that same day.

Malaysia Airlines said it was working with the authorities who have dispatched search and rescue teams to locate the plane.

According to a statement from Malaysia Airlines, the MH370 flight was carrying a total of 227 passengers, including two infants and 12 crew members. The passengers were of 13 different nationalities.

The Flight-aware tracking program lost contact with the flight about 20 minutes after take-off as it was crossing the Malay peninsula at 35,000 feet, while the Flightradar24 program was able to track it into the South China Sea towards Vietnam before losing contact completely.

The Vietnam Subang Air Traffic Control reported it had lost contact at 2.40 a.m. today.