Malaysian Airline System Bhd. (MAS) said that one of its aircraft with 239 people on board lost contact while flying to Beijing overnight, sparking a regional search to locate the plane as anxious relatives and friends waited for news and Australia’s government said that it feared the worst.
The last radar contact with the Boeing Co. (BA) 777-200, with 227 passengers and 12 crew, was 2:40 a.m. local time, about 120 nautical miles east of Kota Bahru, near the South China Sea, Chief Executive Officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said in Kuala Lumpur today. Flight MH370 lost contact one minute before entering Vietnam’s airspace, its government said on its website.
State-owned Malaysian Air, drawing up plans to upgrade its fleet after failing to post a profit in each of the past three years, is fending off competition from a rash of budget airlines that have started in the region in the past decade. The growth has also brought in more emphasis on safety in Asia, a market that Boeing and Airbus Group NV (AIR) expect to overtake the U.S. as the world’s biggest aircraft market because of the boom.
“We deeply regret that we have lost all contacts with flight MH370,” Ahmad Jauhari said, adding that an early review showed that there was no bad weather. “Our team is currently calling the next-of-kin of passengers and crew.”
The flight, which was carrying passengers from countries includingChina, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, France, New Zealand, India and the U.S., departed from the Malaysian capital at about 12:40 a.m. local time and was scheduled to land in Beijing at 6.30 a.m. There are no indications as yet of any distress signal from the aircraft, Ahmad Jauhari said.
Worst Fears
“The Australian Government fears the worst for those aboard missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370,” the government said in an e-mailed statement.
There was no information of a possible bomb or terror attack behind the missing plane, and Malaysia is studying all possibilities, Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters. China, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia are helping with the search, Hishammuddin said.
Prime Minister Najib Razak said he’d asked all possible measures be taken. The Philippines sent three naval vessels and at least two planes to search for the aircraft, said Lieutenant Cherryl Tindog, spokeswoman of the Armed Forces’ Western Command. China dispatched two ships,China Central Television reported on its official Weibo microblog account. Singapore’s air force dispatched a C130 airplane to search the area.
Source: Bloomberg