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Monday, March 10, 2014

Missing Malaysia Airlines flight: Six things we know so far

As the search for Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 continues with few clues, we look at what we know for certain.
We have now entered the third day of the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 - the passenger jet which appeared to vanish without trace on Friday night.
The plane - a Boeing 777-200ER - lost contact with ground control about an hour into its flight from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to Beijing in China, disappearing from all detection systems in clear weather, and with no distress signal.
There were 239 people on board, including 12 crew, but no trace of the aircraft or its passengers have yet been found.
Nine countries are currently involved in the search effort, which is covering thousands of square kilometres of sea, but many questions remain unanswered.
Here we take a look at what we do know so far.

1. Last contact

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 takes off on Saturday at 12.21am (14:21 GMT Friday) from Kuala Lumpur, headed for Beijing where it was due to land at 6.30am (22:30 GMT Friday) the same day. It had 227 and 12 crew on board.
But it lost contact with ground control between one and two hours into the flight - around 120 nautical miles off the east coast of Malaysian town Kota Bharu.
The plane's pilots sent no distress signal, and the weather was clear at the time. It would have been travelling at an altitude of 35,000ft at the time

2. Mystery passengers

As mentioned, there were 227 passengers on board, made up of 154 people from China and Taiwain, 38 Malaysians, seven Indonesians, six Australians, five Indians, four French and three Americans.
But we learned on Saturday, two of those on the passenger manifest - Austrian Christian Kozel and Italian Luigi Maraldi - who were not on the plane.
Both had their passports stolen in Thailand during the past two years, and investigators are now trying to establish who was travelling in their place.
Crime agency Interpol has also said its investigations showed there could have been other people with "suspect passports", and is working to find our more about them.
And Malaysian authorities say they are investigating up to four people who they believe could have been travelling with dodgy documents, and have called in the FBI for support.

3. Route change

On Sunday, it was revealed that radar records indicated the flight may gave turned back from its scheduled route before disappearing.
This led the search operation to be widened, with teams looking on both sides of the Malaysian peninsula.
Wide search: Teams are looking on both sides of Malaysia

4. No debris found

Despite reports of oil slicks and debris being spotted in the sea by search teams, investigators say nothing has yet been found that can be linked to the plane.
A Vietnamese plane spotted a "yellow floating object" earlier today that it was thought could have been a life raft. But after helicopters and boats were scrambled to the area of sea south of Vietnam, they found the floating debris was not linked to the plane.
There have also been sightings of several oil slicks in the sea. But again, tests revealed it was not jet fuel. It's thought it was probably from a ship.

5. Terrorism is a possibility

Authorities say they are looking at all possibilities for what has happened to MH370, but they have not ruled out a hijacking as a cause of the disappearance.
Malaysia's civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said the fate of the craft was an "unprecedented mystery", and the families of the passengers had been told to prepare for the worst.
But he said they were as baffled by the vanishing plane as the rest of the world.

6. The search will go on

But while many questions remain unanswered, Mr Rahman said they would continue searching until they found them.
He said the search would "take as long as it takes".
"We are every hour, every second looking at ever area of the sea".
The rescue effort is being supported by teams from Australia, China, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, New Zealand and the US.

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