Malaysia Airlines loses contact with plane en route to Beijing with 239 aboard
CBS/REUTERSMarch 7, 2014, 8:12 PM
A Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 239 people from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing went missing over the South China Sea on Saturday, prompting China to send ships to scour the water for possible wreckage.
The airline, speaking several hours after the plane had been due to land in the Chinese capital, said it was still too early so say whether the aircraft had crashed. It said there had been no distress signal and it cited early speculation that the plane may have landed in Nanming in southern China.
As news of the disappearance filtered through to distraught friends and relatives who had been waiting for the flight to arrive in Beijing, Malaysia Airline said it was still investigating and took no questions at a brief news conference.
“Our team is currently calling the next-of-kin of passengers and crew,” the airlines’ group chief executive officer, Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, said in a statement. “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,” he said.
