Contact lost with Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 | 8th March 2014

Nick 0208 Ldn

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Malaysia Airlines 'loses contact with plane'

Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with a plane travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 239 people on board.


The airline said in a statement that flight MH370 disappeared at 02:40 local time on Saturday (18:40 GMT on Friday).


It was expected to land in Beijing at 06:30 (22:30 GMT).


"Malaysia Airlines is currently working with the authorities who have activated their search and rescue team to locate the aircraft," the carrier said.


The Boeing B777-200 aircraft was carrying 227 passengers, including two infants, and 12 crew members.


It went missing two hours after taking off from Kuala Lumpur.


The airline has told the BBC it will be holding a press conference later on Saturday.


Malaysia Airlines is the national carrier of Malaysia and one of Asia's largest, flying nearly 37,000 passengers daily to some 80 destinations worldwide.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26492748


Confusingly [and distressingly so if the worst has occurred] there was an earlier report of it having safely landed. Sky also spoke of an incident in which a Spanish jet "went missing", only for it to be found circling and later escorted by fighters to an airport. One can but hope.

The weather is believed to have been good.
 

Nick 0208 Ldn

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It is going to be light now of course, would it have been over land or water at two hours into the flight?
 

Solius

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I flew in some dodgy planes while traveling Asia but I'd have felt safe on a jet that size. Worrying.
 

Nick 0208 Ldn

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^ That doesn't sound good.

Still, for there to be no definitive word after eight hours have elapsed, it's unusual.
 

Nick 0208 Ldn

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I am sure that it was discussed following the incident in San Francisco last year, however as a reminder the 777 carries a pretty good safety record.
 

bbest

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Vietnam media now reporting their navy has confirmed that #MalaysiaAirlines flight #MH370 crashed into the ocean. #PrayForMH370
 

BW.k

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An experienced captain , a modern aircraft and an airline with good security record but.... Life is so uncertain.
 

air_mood

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They found oil slicks on the ocean off Vietnam, still no confirmation on the aircraft yet. Doesn't really look good though.
 

air_mood

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No one knows. Was listening to the reporter on the TV and he was interviewing someone from the flightradar24 website. He mentioned that when the plane went off the radar, there was no descent, which is not consistent with a crash. That bit is baffling.
 

Nick 0208 Ldn

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No one knows. Was listening to the reporter on the TV and he was interviewing someone from the flightradar24 website. He mentioned that when the plane went off the radar, there was no descent, which is not consistent with a crash. That bit is baffling.
Quite, Boeing and the authorities are going to want to determine the precise circumstances pretty sharpish.


Search for the aircraft

But with speculation mounting over whether Flight MH 370, which was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, went down on land -- perhaps in Vietnam -- or in the South China Sea, one aviation expert says it's essential to find the plane as soon as possible in case there are survivors.

"Given the modern communications and the truly modern equipped (Boeing) 777, it's highly unlikely this plane would have landed somewhere not contactable," Mary Schiavo, the former Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Transportation, told CNN. "Depending on how the plane has gone down, there could be many survivors in need of aid.

"That plane has many different ways to locate it: Automatic beacons that tell you where it is; there are several ways to contact it both with radios and GPS, as well as computer communications within the cockpit.

"But the lack of communication suggests that something most unfortunate has happened -- though that does not suggest there are not any persons that need to be rescued and secured."

Schiavo warned that if for some reason the transmitters on the airliner are not operating, then the search will obviously become far more complex and time-consuming.

"If they are not working then sadly there are similarities with the Air France plane, which was traveling from Brazil to Paris, France and was lost in the ocean. That was very difficult to locate because of the depth of the ocean," she said.

Air France Flight 447 -- an Airbus A330-203 -- plunged into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009, killing all 228 people on board. It took four searches over the course of nearly two years to locate the bulk of the wreckage and the majority of the bodies in a mountain range deep under the ocean.

The incident report detailed how the pilots failed to respond effectively to problems with the plane's speed sensors or to correct its trajectory when things first started to go wrong.

Aviation expert Jim Tilmon said the Boeing 777-200 was as sophisticated an aircraft as they come with an excellent safety record.

"The only fatality has been from the Asiana crash in San Francisco (last year)," he told CNN's Anderson Cooper. "There's been one other 777 that had some problems but no-one was hurt. This is really a shock in lots of ways."

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/07/travel/malaysia-airliner-analysis/
 

x42bn6

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apparently two people boarded the plane with stolen passports....
Guardian:

Kate Hodal has been following up stories that an Italian man whose name is on the passenger list did not in fact get on the plane.

The Italian embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, told Hodal that Luigi Maraldi is an Italian national living in Phuket who was recently given a new passport but did not get on the flight.

The embassy could not provide details on when the new passport was issued, possibly a couple of months ago, Hodal was told.

An embassy official told her it sounded like a case of “double passports”, where the new one is issued but the old one is stolen, although there was also the possibility that it could be a different Luigi Maraldi on board.

Maraldi himself has been quoted by other media as saying his old passport was stolen last year.
Similar to the case of Luigi Maraldi, Austria has said that one of its citizens included on the passenger list was not on board the flight.

Austria’s foreign ministry spokesman, Martin Weiss, told media outlets on Saturday that the citizen, who he did not name, was safely living in Austria and had his passport stolen two years ago during a visit to Thailand.

There is only one Austrian on the passenger list: Christian Kozel, aged 30.
 

Pexbo

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Sounds like it could be a terrorist act if that's the case although I'd be interested to see the statistics for how many stolen passports are thought to be used on any individual flight.
 

Nick 0208 Ldn

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Is there reason to believe that a flight originating in Malaysia [or one bound for China for that matter] would be of particular risk right now?
 

air_mood

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For the record, some of the conspiracy theorists are even trying to point out that there's 2 Ukranians and 1 Russian in the passenger manifest so take what you will of that. Highly likely crap though, not the passenger manifest but the fact that there's Ukranians and a Russian in the plane might amount to something.
 

Bross

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I'm surprised if it is a terrorist act...well at least from the middle east...Malaysia is friendly with Middle East countries...except of course Israel.
The majority of the passengers on the plane were Chinese, as there is a large Chinese population in Malaysia and the plane was headed for Beijing.

The Chinese fear it was a terrorist attack targetting Chinese people performed by Uyghur (chinese muslim minority) seperationists.
 

Nick 0208 Ldn

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The Pentagon dispatched a naval destroyer and a surveillance plane to aid in the search. The US military statement said a P-3C Orion reconnaissance plane also will depart shortly from Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan

The Chinese fear it was a terrorist attack targetting Chinese people performed by Uyghur (chinese muslim minority) seperationists.
From what i can see it would be the first attack of that type and scale by them, with the multinational component to the potential victims a departure from the norm as well.

There was a hijacking a couple of years ago :: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianjin_Airlines_Flight_GS7554
 

Baxter

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I am no expert but if it was bomb, would there not be wreackage spead arcoss the water?
It may be spread over a very large distance. An explosion at 30,000 feet would see the wreckage spread over miles, which would make finding it more difficult.
 

pauldyson1uk

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It may be spread over a very large distance. An explosion at 30,000 feet would see the wreckage spread over miles, which would make finding it more difficult.
very true it would be spread over a massive area, but still quite a lot of it will float, 3 counties are searching for it. I would of expected some to of been spotted by now.
Maybe it was an engine issue and the aircraft plunge into the sea nose first, one explanation why their is no wreakage found yet and only 2 oil slicks spotted.