(Copied and pasted)

 

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Vietnamese air force planes on Saturday spotted two large oil slicks close to where a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 went missing earlier in the day, the first sign that the aircraft carrying 239 people had crashed.

The oil slicks were spotted late Saturday off the southern tip of Vietnam and were each between 10 kilometers (6 miles) and 15 kilometers (9 miles) long, the Vietnamese government said in a statement. There was no confirmation that the slicks were related to the missing plane, but the statement said they were consistent with the kinds that would be produced by the two fuel tanks of a crashed jetliner.The air force planes were part of a multinational search operation launched after Flight MH370 fell off radar screens less than an hour after it took off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing early Saturday morning.

Two-thirds of the missing plane's passengers were from China, while others were from elsewhere in Asia, North America and Europe.

Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said there was no indication that the pilots had sent a distress signal, suggesting that whatever happened to the plane occurred quickly and possibly catastrophically.

Asked whether terrorism was suspected, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said, "We are looking at all possibilities, but it is too early to make any conclusive remarks."

Raw: Airline CEO Discusses Search EffortsPlay video

Foreign ministry officials in Italy and Austria said the names of two nationals from those countries listed on the flight's manifest matched passports reported stolen in Thailand.

Italy's Foreign Ministry said the Italian man who was listed as being a passenger, Luigi Maraldi, was traveling in Thailand and was not aboard the plane. It said he reported his passport stolen last August.

Austria's Foreign Ministry confirmed that a name listed on the manifest matched an Austrian passport reported stolen two years ago in Thailand. It said the Austrian was not on the plane, but would not confirm the person's identity.

At Beijing's airport, authorities posted a notice asking relatives and friends of passengers to gather at a nearby hotel to wait for further information, and provided a shuttle bus service. A woman wept aboard the bus while saying on a mobile phone, "They want us to go to the hotel. It cannot be good."

Relatives and friends of passengers were escorted into a private area at the hotel, but reporters were kept away. A man in a gray hooded sweatshirt later stormed out complaining about a lack of information. The man, who said he was a Beijing resident but declined to give his name, said he was anxious because his mother was on board the flight with a group of 10 tourists.

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"We have been waiting for hours and there is still no verification," he said.

The plane was last detected on radar at 1:30 a.m. (1730 GMT Friday) around where the South China Sea meets the Gulf of Thailand, authorities in Malaysia and Vietnam said.

Lai Xuan Thanh, director of Vietnam's civil aviation authority, said air traffic officials in the country never made contact with the plane.

The plane "lost all contact and radar signal one minute before it entered Vietnam's air traffic control," Lt. Gen. Vo Van Tuan, deputy chief of staff of the Vietnamese army, said in a statement.

The South China Sea is a tense region with competing territorial claims that have led to several low-level conflicts, particularly between China and the Philippines. That antipathy briefly faded Saturday as China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia all sent ships and planes to the region.

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Najib said Malaysia had dispatched 15 planes and nine ships to the area. The U.S. Navy was sending a warship and a surveillance plane, while Singapore said it would send a submarine and a plane. China and Vietnam also were sending aircraft to help in the search.

It's not uncommon for it to take several days to find the wreckage of aircraft floating on the ocean. Locating and then recovering the flight data recorders, vital to any investigation, can take months or even years.

"In times of emergencies like this, we have to show unity of efforts that transcends boundaries and issues," said Lt. Gen. Roy Deveraturda, commander of the Philippine military's Western Command.

After the oil slick was spotted, the air search was suspended for the night and was to resume Sunday morning, while the sea search was ongoing, Malaysia Airlines said.

The plane was carrying 227 passengers, including two infants, and 12 crew members, the airline said. It said there were 152 passengers from China, 38 from Malaysia, seven from Indonesia, six from Australia, five from India, three from the U.S., and others from Indonesia, France, New Zealand, Canada, Ukraine, Russia, Taiwan and the Netherlands.

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In Kuala Lumpur, family members gathered at the airport, but were kept away from reporters.

"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," said Ahmad Jauhari, the airline CEO. "Our thoughts and prayers are with all affected passengers and crew and their family members."

Fuad Sharuji, Malaysia Airlines' vice president of operations control, told CNN that the plane was flying at an altitude of 35,000 feet (10,670 meters) when it disappeared and that the pilots had reported no problem with the aircraft.

Malaysia Airlines has a good safety record, as does the 777, which had not had a fatal crash in its 19-year history until an Asiana Airlines plane crashed in San Francisco in July 2013, killing three passengers, all teenagers from China.

Airliner "black boxes" — the flight data and cockpit voice recorders — are equipped with "pingers" that emit ultrasonic signals that can be detected underwater. Under good conditions, the signals can be detected from several hundred miles away, said John Goglia, a former member of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. If the boxes are trapped inside the wreckage, the sound may not travel as far, he said. If the boxes are at the bottom of an underwater trench, that also hinders how far the sound can travel. The signals also weaken over time.

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Air France Flight 447, with 228 people on board, disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1, 2009. Some wreckage and bodies were recovered over the next two weeks, but it took nearly two years for the main wreckage of the Airbus 330 and its black boxes to be located and recovered.

Malaysia Airlines said the 53-year-old pilot of Flight MH370, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, has more than 18,000 flying hours and has been flying for the airline since 1981. The first officer, 27-year-old Fariq Hamid, has about 2,800 hours of experience and has flown for the airline since 2007.

The tip of the wing of the same Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777-200 broke off Aug. 9, 2012, as it was taxiing at Pudong International Airport outside Shanghai. The wingtip collided with the tail of a China Eastern Airlines A340 plane. No one was injured.

Malaysia Airlines' last fatal incident was in 1995, when one its planes crashed near the Malaysian city of Tawau, killing 34 people. The deadliest crash in its history occurred in 1977, when a domestic Malaysian flight crashed after being hijacked, killing 100 people.

In August 2005, a Malaysian Airlines 777 flying from Perth, Australia, to Kuala Lumpur suddenly shot up 900 meters (3,000 feet) before the pilot disengaged the autopilot and landed safely. The plane's software had incorrectly measured speed and acceleration, and the software was quickly updated on planes around the world.

Malaysia Airlines has 15 Boeing 777-200s in its fleet of about 100 planes. The state-owned carrier last month reported its fourth straight quarterly loss and warned of tougher times.

___

 

UPDATE [12:01]: Altogether, 239 passengers & crew, from 14 different nationalities, including two infants. Passengers were from: 
1.    China - 152 plus 1 infant

2.    Malaysia - 38

3.    Indonesia - 12

4.    Australia - 7

5.    France - 3

6.    United States of America - 3 plus 1 infant

7.    New Zealand - 2

8.    Ukraine - 2

9.    Canada - 2

10.  Russia - 1

11.  Italy - 1

12.  Taiwan - 1

13.  Netherlands - 1

14.  Austria - 1

Edited March 8, 201412 yr by CrossFire

Shit. I hate when these kind of accidents happen, cause it's only a matter of time before something crashes into metropolitan areas, and kills thousands of people. [Kinda off topic] Oh, and i read somewhere that there is no "Emergency landing on Water", the pilots and the companies call it "Crash landing on water".

Been following the news for the whole day already. My country has activated our Air Force to assist in the effort to locate MH370. US Navy has been activated as well. 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/missing-malaysian-airlines-flight-mh370-3221009 MH370 disappeared and lost contact with Subang Air Traffic Control. Though Vietnam Navy has been reporting that the plane crash, authorities are still classify the plane as missing till proper evidence of a crash surfaces. It's been more than 16 hours since MH370 disappeared from radars. Till now, there has been no clear information of what happened to the aircraft. It's 12.45am in Vietnam and in my country it is 1.45am. I am still following this news. I will update when I can. 

UPDATE: Flight path has been released: 

 

 

UPDATE 2: An extraordinary story has just emerged from Italy in relation to missing flight MH 370.

Luigi Maraldi, 37, from Cesena, was named as one of the passengers on board the plane.

However, reports in Italy have confirmed that he was NOT on board and that he had reported his passport stolen last August.

Mr Maraldi's parents have spoken to him in Thailand and he is 'fine', news agency ANSA reports.

The revelation suggests that one of the 227 passengers on board the missing flight was using a stolen passport.

 

Edited March 8, 201412 yr by CrossFire

Surprisingly, even after this incident, Malaysia Airlines still has an aircraft flying under the SAME flight number right now. The flight is EN Route to Beijing now.

http://www.flightradar24.com/MAS370/2d9dd5b

 

UPDATE:

The US Navy has confirmed it is sending a guided-missile destroyer to the  southern coast of Vietnam to help with the search efforts.

The USS Pinckney has been conducting training and security operations in the South China Sea.

Authorities said the vessel could be close to the missing jet within 24 hours.  It also carries two helicopters equipped for search and rescue.

A US P-3C Orion aircraft will also depart shortly from Japan to help with the search efforts.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-live-3219331#ixzz2vOZ0KwoZ 
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Edited March 8, 201412 yr by ASTTrprDillon95

Two, not just one with stolen passports.

 

The fact all checks out with weather, nothing from the cockpit to suggest plane troubles, something went wrong and it could have something to do with those two people with stolen passports.

Another note, 20 high management executives from a large company in the region were aboard the flight. (Will try to find the article I read that from to provide a source).

 

What's really weird is there is no wreckage, and was never anything from the cockpit. You'd think if someone tried to take the cockpit they would have time to get on the radio and if it was a bomb there would be immense amounts of debris in the water.

It's strange that on flightradar24 it doesn't show the plane descending, it just stops at 35,000 FT.

Shit.... Only me thinking something like bermuda triangle shit and such?

Shit.... Only me thinking something like bermuda triangle shit and such?

Yes. 

Truth to be told, no greater number of shipping or aircraft go missing within the area known as Bermuda Triangle than anywhere else in the vast oceans of the Earth. As well as that, incidents of missing ships or aircraft that were nowhere near the area of Bermuda at the time of disappearance are often falsely attributed to the Bermuda Triangle. 

 

This is likely the cause of a crash, or something worse (i.e hijacking). 

This sums up my thoughts on what happened...

 

Edited March 9, 201412 yr by Darkangel

Trying to picture this in my head. A HUGE, FLYING thing (airplane) can become "MISSING" within 2 hours of flight? I thought humans were smarter than that. Radar and some tracking devices should be able to track it down. I also heard that a few pregnant women were on that plane...

More than  24 hours in to the Search and Locate Operation. NO sign of Malaysia Airlines MH370

 

UPDATE:

 

Malaysian Authorities say 22 aircrafts and 40 ships are in Search and Locate mission. Malaysia Defence Minister have contacted international agencies to aid in this mission to locate MH370. The Federal Bureau of Investigations has also been contacted to assist in investigations. The National Transportation Safety Bureau is sending a team to assist in investigations as well. 

 

Authorities are verifying a possible lead that both Civilian and Military radar have record of MH370 turning around. At this point in time that is not confirmed. Chinese Authorities say they have received news of debris being spotted. However Malaysian Authorities say they have not been given any news of debris spotted,

Edited March 9, 201412 yr by ASTTrprDillon95

If it was hijacked, they probably turned off the transponders like in 9/11 case

Wouldn't matter: there's a standard "hijacking" transponder code - even if it's only shown for a moment, it triggers a response (pilots have to be warned *not* to dial past emergency codes when changing transponder code - e.g. if going from 1900 to 5500, they don't set the second digit to 5 and then dial the first back 1-7-6-5: that passes through 7500, an emergency code, which triggers a response).

Not to mention that airline pilots now know about hijacking and to resist it - before 9/11, hijacking was essentially hostage taking (hence a lack of resistance - it was better to let the hijackers order the plane onto the ground, where they could be given ransom or the plane could be stormed); now, people are much, much less likely to go down without a fight, and a fight means there's time to radio a message.

This is my thought on what possibly could've happen. On June 1,2009, an AIr France Airbus A330-201 went missing about midway into its flight. After five days wreckage came floating above to the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. It took almost 2 1/2 years before the black boxes and crash site was found. Amazingly enough the black boxes were both still in perfect working order. The cause of the crash was a mix of pilot misconception and mechanical error. The pilot was in command for most of his flight, and as the flight approached a heavy storm, the Pilot was just ready to take his break and allowed the less experienced pilot to take his spot as relief. As soon as the Pilot left the Cockpit, Ice Pellets hammered the plane which led to the freezing of the three pitot tubes. Due to the three pitot tubes freezing this gave the Airplane false altitude and speed readings which automatically tripped the autopilot. The autopilot then makes the Pilot or Co-Pilot fly the plane most of the time the pilot takes control. In this case, the Co-Pilot (Bonin)  took action quickly by forcing the Joystick back which forces the plane nose up thinking. The false readings the crew receive cause fatal misconception in the Cockpit and what happens next is the last chance!  With the Co-Pilot forcing the planes nose upwards, the plane now gets a new warning, the stall warning, alerting the flight crew that the plane is going to stall. The quick action should've been to put the nose down and regain speed, but that's the opposite that was done by Co-Pilot Bonin. At 38,000 feet, Co-Pilot kept the planes nose up causing the plane to fall, in short terms the misconception of the airspeed caused the plane to drop out of the sky quickly. Below 10,000 feet the relief Pilot realizes the aircrafts displays are giving the correct information after the pitot tubes unfroze. They quickly put the nose down but it was too late. I believe something similar occurred on Malaysia Airlines Flight (MH370). I believe the Boeing 777S' pitot tubes froze at the high altitudes causing chaos in the Cockpit. This would explain how the aircraft quickly dropped of the radar, and why no maday or warning was given to the ATC because the flight crew was to busy trying to deal with the situation.

Oh, and i read somewhere that there is no "Emergency landing on Water", the pilots and the companies call it "Crash landing on water".

 

I'd disagree with that statement. It is possible, but VERY difficult to do.

Examples that come to mind are:

This National Flight that ditched in the water, off the coast of Florida. Only fatality I recall was a Flight attendant that drowned after leaving the plane.

These Aeroflot incidents had 100% survival I think:

 

This JAL DC-8 found itself in the drink as well. It was apparently repaired and returned to service (those Douglas Birds, they just keep on going and going.)

 

Even though this was still in the Piston era, PAA Flight 6 is a very well known case, and that was in the middle of the pacific:

 

 

 

This is my thought on what possibly could've happen. On June 1,2009, an AIr France Airbus A330-201 went missing about midway into its flight. After five days wreckage came floating above to the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. It took almost 2 1/2 years before the black boxes and crash site was found. Amazingly enough the black boxes were both still in perfect working order. The cause of the crash was a mix of pilot misconception and mechanical error. The pilot was in command for most of his flight, and as the flight approached a heavy storm, the Pilot was just ready to take his break and allowed the less experienced pilot to take his spot as relief. As soon as the Pilot left the Cockpit, Ice Pellets hammered the plane which led to the freezing of the three pitot tubes. Due to the three pitot tubes freezing this gave the Airplane false altitude and speed readings which automatically tripped the autopilot. The autopilot then makes the Pilot or Co-Pilot fly the plane most of the time the pilot takes control. In this case, the Co-Pilot (Bonin)  took action quickly by forcing the Joystick back which forces the plane nose up thinking. The false readings the crew receive cause fatal misconception in the Cockpit and what happens next is the last chance!  With the Co-Pilot forcing the planes nose upwards, the plane now gets a new warning, the stall warning, alerting the flight crew that the plane is going to stall. The quick action should've been to put the nose down and regain speed, but that's the opposite that was done by Co-Pilot Bonin. At 38,000 feet, Co-Pilot kept the planes nose up causing the plane to fall, in short terms the misconception of the airspeed caused the plane to drop out of the sky quickly. Below 10,000 feet the relief Pilot realizes the aircrafts displays are giving the correct information after the pitot tubes unfroze. They quickly put the nose down but it was too late. I believe something similar occurred on Malaysia Airlines Flight (MH370). I believe the Boeing 777S' pitot tubes froze at the high altitudes causing chaos in the Cockpit. This would explain how the aircraft quickly dropped of the radar, and why no maday or warning was given to the ATC because the flight crew was to busy trying to deal with the situation.

While a Pitot tube failure, even down to the nature of Birgenair 301's can't be completely written out, I have my doubts still. AF447's problem was that of flying in a situation where ice is likely (a storm), but also the fact that the Pitot Tubes were faulty, and not replaced on this (Airbus at around the same time issued a directive saying that the faulty ones should be replaced for better ones.) Here, the weather conditions showed weather in the area were not too bad from what I understand, and I don't think there is a problem with the 777's Pitot Tube system as the Airbus A330 and A340 had. Of course, it only takes a pattern of bad CRM in the cockpit to only turn it into such (albeit, the manufacture can't fix that part. Good CRM needs to be taught and encouraged by the airlines, and outside the US and most EU states, it has a rather classical approach of kissing up to the Captain, even if that lower ranking pilot knows for certain that they are right.) 

It is very interesting to see what comes out of this, stolen identities, mysterious disappearance, not to mention all sorts of stories from all around different sources. Most people had AF447 figured out within a day or two. I remember sitting a computer lab when I first heard of it, and heard of the weather conditions and said to myself "Had to have been a pitot tube failure (rather than the lightning strike theory which was madly popular with the media at the time.)" Here, it's very muggy, many things are still on the table.

UPDATE:

 

SINGAPORE: The Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) has deployed more assets to assist in the search-and-locate operation for the missing Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines (MAS) plane MH370.

It sent two more Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) C-130 aircraft, a Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN) Formidable-class frigate (RSS Steadfast) with a Sikorsky S-70B naval helicopter onboard, a submarine support and rescue vessel with divers onboard, as well as a Missile Corvette (RSS Vigour).

The Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) said on Sunday that this followed Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen's offer of additional assistance to his Malaysian counterpart, Mr Hishammuddin Hussein, on Saturday.

MINDEF also said the first RSAF C-130 deployed on Saturday returned to Singapore on the same night.

On Saturday, the RSAF deployed a C130 aircraft for the search and locate mission.

Contact with the Beijing-bound aircraft, which carried 239 people, was lost at around 1:30am Malaysian time (1730 GMT Friday), Malaysian authorities said, about an hour after take-off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

- CNA/nd

WASHINGTON: The FBI is sending agents and technical experts to assist a team probing the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines jet that had several Americans aboard, US media reported Saturday.

US officials told The Los Angeles Times that they are trying to determine whether there was any terror link to what caused Flight 370 to go missing as it carried 239 people from Kuala Lumpur toward Beijing.

The fact that at least three of the passengers are believed to be Americans "gives us entree" to the case," a top federal law enforcement official told the newspaper.

"But so far, what happened is a mystery."

A US official told CNN that FBI agents stationed at the American Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, including an FBI legal attache, were monitoring the situation closely.

Asked to confirm the reports, an FBI spokesman only replied: "We are ready to assist if needed."

Although two passengers appeared to have been using stolen EU passports, "there is no indication this is a terrorist attack; stolen passports are certainly not indicative of a terrorist attack," a senior counterterrorism official told the Times.

The official stressed there was "no evidence" of terrorism thus far.

According to the federal law enforcement official, FBI personnel will help review video of the Kuala Lumpur airport for images of passengers at the ticket counter, security sections and the boarding area. The agents would then use counter-terrorism technology to find any possible matches with known members of Al-Qaeda or other terror groups.

And the US National Transportation Safety Board may also join the investigation "because the jet was built by Boeing in this country," the law enforcement official said.

The stolen passports used by two passengers on the plane are believed to have come from an Italian and a an Austrian.

"Just because they were stolen doesn't mean the travellers were terrorists," a Department of Homeland Security official said. "They could have been nothing more than thieves. Or they could have simply bought the passports on the black market."

- AFP/nd

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said that a team of investigators travelled to Asia late on Saturday to help in the missing Malaysia Airlines jet probe.

The team will be "ready to assist with the investigation of the March 8 Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 event", the NTSB said in a brief statement.

"Because of the lengthy travel time from the United States, the NTSB has sent a team of investigators, accompanied by technical advisers from Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration, to the area so they will be positioned to offer US assistance," the statement read.

Edited March 9, 201412 yr by ASTTrprDillon95

I don't see any motive behind a hijacking, it's not like Malaysia or China have been up to much recently, unless of course the supposed hijackers were to fly into America or something.

BREAKING:  Reports indicate that the flight might of turned back before vanishing.

It said that there was 2 stolen passport's. Hijacker's could of turned off the planes signal for all we know