KUALA LUMPUR, malaysia — A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 carrying 239 people lost contact over the South China Sea early Saturday morning on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, and international aviation authorities still hadn’t located the jetliner several hours later.
The plane lost communication two hours into the flight in Vietnam’s airspace at 1:20 a.m., China’s official Xinhua News Agency said. Vietnamese website VN Express said a Vietnamese search-and-rescue official reported that signals from the plane were detected about 140 miles southwest of Vietnam’s southernmost Ca Mau province.
Malaysia Airlines said it was working with authorities who activated their search-and-rescue teams to locate the aircraft. The route would take the aircraft from Malaysia across to Vietnam and China.
“Our team is currently calling the next-of-kin of passengers and crew. Focus of the airline is to work with the emergency responders and authorities and mobilize its full support,” Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said in a statement.
Fuad Sharuji, Malaysian Airlines’ vice president of operations control, told CNN that the plane was flying at an altitude of 35,000 feet and that the pilots had reported no problem with the aircraft. He said the aircraft’s last communication was over the South China Sea between Malaysia and Vietnam.
The plane was carrying 227 passengers, including two infants, and 12 crew members, the airline said. Passengers were from 14 countries, including 153 from China, 38 from Malaysia, seven Australians and four Americans.
