Malaysian Airliner Disappears Over South China Sea
- Details
- Category: World News
- Published on Sunday, 09 March 2014 13:13
- Written by Janet Walker
Malaysian Airline Flight MH370 carrying 239 passengers and crew members, originating in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, fell off the radar approximately one hour into the routine flight destined for Beijing, China.
According to the flight path, the Boeing 777 was scheduled to hand off air traffic control to Vietnam Ho Chi Min Air Control on Saturday March 8, at 1:22am. No contact was established. In the past 24 hours, speculation on the jetliner's whereabouts has filtered through international media agencies.
Although 153 passengers including one infant were Chinese citizens, 14 nationalities were on board the doomed airliner.
The flight manifest from the doomed Malaysian airliner revealed 38 passengers including the 12 person crew were Malaysian; Indonesian and Australia each lost seven citizens, five passengers were from India; four from France.
Three passengers including two children were United States citizens. New Zealand, Ukraine and Canada each confirmed two citizens each. One citizen from Russia, Italy, Netherlands and Austria were also reported onboard. Recent revelation of stolen passports has brought the nationality of two passengers in question.
Investigators have concluded the catastrophic incident, which has yet to be determined, occurred in excellent flying conditions, inside Vietnamese air space, and one hour into the flight. Without any evidence investigators can only run theoretical scenarios as to the possibility of air break-up, gross pilot error, power failure, and catastrophic break up with complete submersion.
Terrorism has not been ruled out although no extremist group has stepped forward to take credit for the disaster.
The NTSB although not the governing body in the investigation will eventually have some control as the plane was manufactured in the United States. The United States has sent a search and rescue ship to assist in the efforts.
All efforts by every nation to first find the jet and secondly sensitively handle the removal of the remains.
Reports of debris and an oil slick over the vicinity of the downed plane have been grossly exaggerated and retracted by most major media sources.
