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Malaysia Airlines 777 Goes Missing: MH370

 MALAYSIAN AIRLINES FLIGHT 370 MISSING

Early today (8/3/2014), A Boeing 777-200ER owned by Malaysian carrier Malaysia Airlines mysteriously disappeared off radar.

The plane bound for Beijing lost contact with Subang Air Traffic Control at 2:40 local time (18:40).

Early speculations was that the flight had some instrument or flight control problems and was escorted by Vietnamese fighters to Nan Ming. This rumour was then denied and confirmed to be untrue.

The plane was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew among them 153 Chinese, 38 Malaysians and 7 Indonesians. This flight was a codeshare between Malaysia Airlines and China Southern Airlines.

The plane was confirmed carrying 7.5 hours of fuel at the time of the crash.

en.wikipedia.org
The missing aircraft, still yet to be found

TIMELINE

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, on a six hour red-eye flight to Beijing departed Kuala Lumpur International Airport (WMKK) at 00:41am (16:41 UTC) . The flight was expected to arrive in Beijing's Capital Airport at 6:30 local time. The flight climbed out of Kuala Lumpur International Airport as usual. There seemed to be no problem as the plane was exiting Malaysian Territory. Soon after reaching the designated cruising altitude of 35.000ft and after 2 hours in the air, at 2:40am (Malaysia Standard Time) Subang ATC lost contact with the plane, just as they entered Vietnamese Airspace. There was no sign from the pilots of any trouble nor even a distress signal and all exchanges between ATC and MH370 were normal. Meanwhile, Ho Chi Minh ATC were also expecting MH370 to check in.

http://nikomd90.blog.so-net.ne.jp/
The aircraft involved

A few hours later, Vietnamese navy troops state that the plane has crashed into the Gulf of Thailand, presumably 153 miles from the island of Thu Cho in Vietnam. Malaysian officials deny this statement and it was also rejected by the Malaysian Minister of Transport. At the time of the crash, controllers indeed confirm that the plane was in Ho Chi Minh Airspace. Soon after, Malaysian representatives hold a press conference. Two hours later, CEO of Malaysian Airlines, Ahmad Jauhari Yahya released a statement:

Statement by CEO Malaysia Airlines

Malaysian authorites soon scrambled a plane, two helicopters and four vessels off it's east coast in search of the plane to verify whether the it had crashed. 

Lai Xuan Thanh, director of Vietnam’s civil aviation authority, said air traffic officials in the country never made contact with the plane.

The plane “lost all contact and radar signal one minute before it entered Vietnam’s air traffic control,’’ Lt. Gen. Vo Van Tuan, deputy chief of staff of the Vietnamese army, said in a statement issued by the government.
The CEO of Malaysia Airlines in one statement did say that there was no distress signal from the pilots suggesting that whatever happened occurred rapidly and possibly catastrophically (I hope not.)

Chinese officials state that the plane lost contact over Vietnam but an unconfirmed report from a flight tracking website said that the aircraft had plunged 200m and changed course just before disappearing from radar. 

This photo shows the route of MH370.
www.flightradar24.com

The rescue will be conducted by joint search-and-rescue teams from Vietnam, China, Philippines and Malaysia. The Singaporean Air Force announced that it has deployed a C-130 to assist in the search while the US Navy has deployed a P-3C Orion and a Destroyer class ship with 2 helicopters onboard.

At around 9:00 MST, Vietnamese troops spotted an oil leak, spanning as long as 15km. This is likely to be from the jet that crashed. 

QUESTIONS OVER THE TWO EUROPEAN PASSPORTS

Just after Malaysia Airlines released a manifest, both Austria and Italy deny that one of their citizens was onboard. This raises the mystery and questions over foul play. Both the Austrian man and the Italian man were found by the police, safe and sound. The Austrian man said that his passport was stolen whilst on a visit to Thailand. Same as the Austrian man, the Italian man also lost his passport during a visit to Thailand, and presumed it was stolen.

After confirming that the stolen European passports matched the names of the two passengers, Malaysia Airlines CEO stated that they are not ruling out any possibilities.

AIRCRAFT HISTORY

Image by Boeing

The Boeing 777 was a -200ER series with "ER" short for Extended range, which meant this plane could fly longer distances than the regular -200 series. The plane involved was registration number 9M-MRO and was 12 years old with over 20.000 service hours. On that night, the flight to Beijing was using callsign MAS370. In it's history, the plane was involved in a minor incident at Shanghai Pudong Airport in 2012. The 777's wingtip struck the tail of an Airbus A340 while taxiing and it separated from the wing.

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

(Don't expect anything fancy. I'm just a 14 year old blogger.")