Plane missing with 236 people on board

[freakiness]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-08/malaysia-airlines-lost-contact-with-plane/5307888

Malaysia Airlines says one of its planes has gone missing on the way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.

A statement from the airline says flight MH370 lost contact with air traffic controllers at 2:40am local time, just over two hours into the flight.

The plane, a Boeing 777-200, left Kuala Lumpur at 12:41am on Saturday, and had been due to arrive in Beijing at 6:30am local time.

The company says the plane was carrying 227 passengers, including two infants, and 12 crew members.

The airline says it is contacting the next-of-kin of all passengers and crew, which includes people of 13 different nationalities.

In a statement on the airline's website, group chief executive officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said the airline was working with authorities to locate the aircraft.

"Focus of the airline is to work with the emergency responders and authorities and mobilise its full support," the statement said.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with all affected passengers and crew and their family members."

The airline says it will provide regular updates on its website.

The ABC understand Malaysia Airlines will hold a press conference on the incident shortly.

[cherry*135]

Hints of terrorism now? The plane was in its safest leg of its journey when it lost contact.

[the_great_she_elephant]

The stolen passports certainly make one wonder. If it ws a bomb,  you'd think someone would have claimed responsibility - there's not much point in making a gesture that dramatic if nobody ever finds out about it. Maybe it was a hijack attempt that went wrong.If so, iIt must have gone pear shaped incredibly quickly though.

[donnashuggy]

It is probably not the best airline, don't qantas want to outsource their maintenance to Malaysia?

[debra9275]

You would think, that if it was a bomb that there would be debris everywhere.

[cherry*135]

Malaysian Airlines is a good airline and had a good safety record.

Noone knows the cause of its disappearance yet do they.? Bit soon to be casting doubts on their maintenance.

[icyfroth]

They haven't ruled out that it was hi-jacked. So it might have been flown to a hitherto unknown location.

[donnashuggy]

That would be my first guess, those carrying the stolen passports probably looked like the person on them, or they weren't checked as is the case most of the time anyway.

Let's hope they find out something soon.

[twinkles**stars]

The 2 traveling on stolen passports had connecting flight bookings so were intending on continuing their journey?

This will now be a rude awaking to the lack of connection with interpol by customs regarding stolen passports. Many countries don't check this which amazed me.

IMO now will be the safest time to fly for everyone will be on full alert.

[the_great_she_elephant]

---

@icyfroth wrote:

They haven't ruled out that it was hi-jacked. So it might have been flown to a hitherto unknown location.

---

It's possible, but not very likely I would have thought. It would be extremely difficult to make a plane full of passengers simply disappear. and surely, the whole point of a hijacking is to make a statement or force a government to accede to your demands. what would be gained by simply flying to a secret destination?

If it was a hijacking attempt then I'd say it went pear-shaped very quickly or there would have been some sort of warning - maybe there was a struggle in the cockpit, or maybe the hijackers killed the crew, but lacked sufficient experience to fly the plane safely.  If it was flown to another destination you'd think it would have been picked up on radar somewhere.

[ca04]

There has been sighted some oilslick  and some debris but no one has confirmed any thing.