A Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 239 people en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing is missing, the airline confirmed.
A Malaysia Airlines Boeing B777-200/ Wikimedia Commons
The Boeing 777-200 aircraft had 227 passengers, including two infants, and 12 crew members on board, the airline said in a statement. The passengers were of 13 different nationalities.
"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 added.
Flight MH370 departed from Kuala Lumpur at 12:41 a.m. Saturday local time, according to a statement from the airline. Air traffic control in Subang lost contact with it two hours later.
It was scheduled to land in Beijing at 6:30 a.m. the same day.
China's CCTV said 160 Chinese nationals were on board the flight, according to microblogging website Weibo.
Chinese state TV also reported there had not been any reports received yet about any aircraft crashed in Chinese waters.
State news agency Xinhua reported radar contact with the flight was lost while it was in Vietnamese airspace.
China is helping to locate the aircraft, Chinese state television said on one of its official microblogs.
If the plane is found to have crashed, the loss would mark the second fatal accident involving a Boeing 777 in less than a year, after an unblemished safety record since the jet entered service in 1995.
Last summer, an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 crash landed in San Francisco, killing three passengers.
Boeing said it was aware of reports that the Malaysia Airlines plane was missing and was monitoring the situation but had no further comment.
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