Malaysia Airlines Loses Contact With Boeing 777-200

I was on a redeye last night so took a nap this afternoon and woke up to 42 texts. That’s a bit more than usual. That usually only happens for bad reasons.

Via the Malaysia Airlines Facebook page:

Statement By Our Group Chief Executive Officer, Ahmad Jauhari Yahya on MH370 Incident. Released at 9.05am/8 Mar 2014 MY Local Time

We deeply regret that we have lost all contacts with flight MH370 which departed Kuala Lumpur at 12.41 am earlier this morning bound for Beijing.

The aircraft was scheduled to land at Beijing International Airport at 6.30am local Beijing time.

Subang Air Traffic Control reported that it lost contact at 2.40am (local Malaysia time) today.

Flight MH370 was operated on a Boeing B777-200 aircraft.

The flight was carrying a total number of 239 passengers and crew – comprising 227 passengers (including 2 infants), 12 crew members. The passengers were of 13 different nationalities.

Malaysia Airlines is currently working with the authorities who have activated their Search and Rescue team to locate the aircraft.

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.

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

The airline will provide regular updates on the situation.

The public may contact +603 7884 1234. For media queries, kindly contact +603 8777 5698/ +603 8787 1276.

My thoughts are with the families of those onboard. When something like this happens it always puts things into perspective…

It appears as if they lost contact with the plane two hours out of Kuala Lumpur. Just to put the “Great Circle” route between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing into perspective, figure that’s about a third of the way into the flight:

MH-370

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Tao Guest

Hi Lucky, In light of this tragic story, do you usually buy travel accident insurance separately or rely on the ones that come with credit cards? Since most of us travel on miles, most of the time credit card insurance wouldn't cover the tickets for which only taxes and fees were charged to the card. I'm just thinking maybe I should consider buying separate insurance from now on.

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the Luxury Travel Expert New Member

Horrible news! So sad for those onboard and their relatives (and my thoughts go to them). And also highly distressing and uncomfortable news for frequent flyers. We were feeling 100% safe on modern Airbus and Boeing longhaul aircrafts flown by reputable operators (at least, I am/was), but the Air France A330 crash over Atlantic a couple of years ago and now this Malaysian B777 (probable) crash over the Gulf of Thailand have changed this perception for ever. Nothing had happened for more than a decade, and we now have to live with the uncomfortable legacy of two of the best known airliners loosing 2 of the most modern airplanes of current times built by the 2 most respected airline manufactorers during the safest of all flight phases (cruise).

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john Member

I think that is a little unfair. I have just checked on the front page of boarding area and at there are at least 7 stories about the plane.

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AUSTEX Guest

Actually, two passengers were flying with stolen passports. Beside the Austrian mentioned above, the other passport is that of an Italian who is safe and sound. All of which might mean nothing.

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Ging Guest

Thanks for actually posting this. Sadly most of other bloggers chose to ignore this incident totally.

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