Want China Times, Xinhua and Staff Reporter 2014-03-08
 |
| Malaysia Airlines holds a press conference in Beijing about the missing aircraft, March 8. (Photo/Xinhua) |
China is
worried over the missing Malaysia Airlines flight scheduled to arrive in
Beijing on Saturday morning, with search and rescue operations under way.
Contact was
lost with a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, China's Civil Aviation
Administration (CAAC) confirmed on Saturday.
The Boeing
777-200 aircraft left the Malaysian capital at 12:41 am Beijing time on
Saturday, and was expected to land in Beijing at 6:30 am, according to Malaysia
Airlines.
The CAAC
confirmed the flight number was MH370, with 239 people on board, including 12
crew members and about 160 Chinese passengers. So far, the flight has not
contacted Chinese air traffic management department or entered China's air
traffic control area.
Contact
with the flight was lost along with its radar signal at 1:20 am Beijing time on
Saturday when it was flying over the Ho Chi Minh air traffic control area in
Vietnam.
Malaysia
Airlines said on its website that the company is trying to locate the flight
with emergency rescue teams.
Yang
Chuantang, China's minister of transport, announced the launch of the
highest-degree emergency response mechanism. The ministry is closely observing
the incident and actively coordinating with domestic authorities as well as
maritime rescue authorities and civil aviation administrations in Malaysia and
Vietnam.
Yang also
put the professional rescue forces in the South China Sea on standby.
The CAAC
has told its air traffic management office keep in touch with its Malaysian
counterpart and ordered Beijing Capital International Airport to comfort
relatives and friends waiting anxiously for the arrival of the missing flight.
Malaysian
national Chuang Ken Fei had been waiting for his two friends in Terminal 3 of
Capital Airport when he said, "Staff at the airport told me the flight did
not take off but I can see from my mobile application that the aircraft was in
the air."
The airport
has formed an emergency group to deal with the incident.
Foreign
minister Wang Yi said on Saturday that China is very worried over the missing
flight. "The news is very disturbing. We hope everyone on the plane is
safe," said Wang.
Yin Zhuo, a
member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative
Conference, said China must improve its search and rescue capacity at sea, as
it is still not strong enough.
A
communication manager for Boeing China told a Xinhua reporter, "We are
closely monitoring reports from the MH370 flight of Malaysia Airlines. Our
thoughts are with everyone on the plane."
The flight
was a code share with China Southern Airlines. A spokesman for China Southern
Airlines said they are investigating whether any of the company's passengers
were on board.
The plane
took its first flight on May 14, 2002 and Malaysia Airlines took possession of
the aircraft on May 31 of the same year.
Malaysia
Airlines operates in Southeast Asia, East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and
on the route between Europe and Australia. It has 15 Boeing 777-200 models in
its fleet.
On July 6,
2013, another Boeing 777-200 operated by Asiana Airlines, a carrier based in
South Korea, crashed on the route between Seoul Incheon International Airport and
San Francisco International Airport while attempting to land. Three Chinese
students were killed and more than 180 people were injured.
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