Originally published on March 8, 2014
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A Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777-200ER en route to Beijing has disappeared with 239 people on board. An international search and rescue effort is underway. The airline is still treating the flight at missing but a senior Vietnamese naval officer was quoted in state media as saying the plane has crashed into the ocean.
Flight MH730 took off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Saturday at 12.41 a.m. local time and lost contact with air traffic control at 2.41 a.m. south of Vietnam's Phu Quoc island in the Gulf of Thailand.
Reuters reports: "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.
Flight MH370, operating a Boeing 777-200ER aircraft, last had contact with air traffic controllers 120 nautical miles off the east coast of the Malaysian town of Kota Bharu, Malaysia Airlines chief executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said in a statement read to a news conference in Kuala Lumpur.
Malaysia and Vietnam were conducting a joint search and rescue, he said but gave no details. China has also sent two maritime rescue ships to the South China Sea to help in any rescue, state television said on one of its microblogs.
'We are extremely worried,' Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in Beijing before the Vietnamese report that the plane had crashed. 'The news is very disturbing. We hope everyone on the plane is safe.'
Malaysia Airlines said people from 14 nationalities were among the 227 passengers, including at least 152 Chinese, 38 Malaysians, 12 Indonesians, six Australians and three Americans. It also said a Chinese infant and an American infant were on board.
If it is confirmed that the plane has crashed, the loss would mark the second fatal accident involving a Boeing 777 in less than a year and by far the worst since the jet entered service in 1995.
An Asiana Airlines Boeing 777-200ER crash-landed in San Francisco in July 2013, killing three passengers and injuring more than 180.
Boeing said it was aware of reports that the Malaysia Airlines plane was missing and was monitoring the situation but had no further comment. The flight was operating as a China Southern Airlines codeshare."
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