A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 carrying 239 people lost contact over the South China Sea on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, raising fears that the plane might have plunged into the pacific ocean.
The plane, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members, lost communication two hours into the flight in Vietnam's airspace at 1.20am local time, China's official Xinhua News Agency reports.
The aircraft left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing 12: 11 am on Friday and had been expected to arrive China at 6:30 am but lost contact with traffic controllers over the South China Sea between Malaysia and Vietnam.
The plane, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members, lost communication two hours into the flight in Vietnam's airspace at 1.20am local time, China's official Xinhua News Agency reports.
The aircraft left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing 12: 11 am on Friday and had been expected to arrive China at 6:30 am but lost contact with traffic controllers over the South China Sea between Malaysia and Vietnam.
Passengers were from 14 countries, including 153 from China, 38 from Malaysia, seven Australians and four Americans.
As ships and aircraft search thousands of square miles for a missing Malaysian Airlines jetliner, officials are trying to understand how the Boeing 777 could have apparently dropped out of the sky without warning or distress signal.
The mysterious lack of contact and the fact that the plane disappeared from radar midflight is so rare that it brings to mind only one other plane disaster in recent years, the doomed 2009 Air France flight 447.
The Air France flight, an Airbus A330, from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed in the Atlantic midway through the flight without sending a distress signal. All 228 aboard were killed.
Lord have mercy...
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