Vietnam spots oil slicks in hunt for missing Malaysian plane

Kuala Lumpur/Beijing: A Beijing-bound plane of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) carrying 239 people including two infants has crashed into the South China Sea, off the coast of Vietnam's Thochu Island.

There were five Indian nationals including a woman from Chennai on board.

After twelve hours of search operations carried out by Vietnamese air force officials, they have spotted two large oil slicks that authorities suspect are from a Malaysian jetliner that went missing early Saturday.

A Vietnamese government statement says the slicks were spotted off the southern tip of Vietnam. The slicks were each between 10 kilometers (6 miles) and 15 kilometers (9 miles) long. 

The statement said the slicks were consistent with the kinds that would be left by fuel from a crashed jetliner.

The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 disappeared from radar screens with 239 people on board en route to Beijing.

The plane lost contact with Subang Air Traffic Control in Malaysia early on Saturday morning, a statement said.
Operating on the B777-200 aircraft, the MH 370 departed Kuala Lumpur on Saturday at 12:41am and lost touch with the ATC around 2:40 am.

A large number of planes and ships from several countries were scouring the area where the plane last made contact, about halfway between Malaysia and the southern tip of Vietnam

"The search and rescue operations will continue as long as necessary," Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak told reporters in Kuala Lumpur. He said 15 air force aircraft, six navy ships and three coast guard vessels had been pressed into service by Malaysia.

The flight with 239 people including 12 crew members onboard was expected to land in Beijing at 6:30 am. Malaysia Airlines said it is currently working with the authorities who have activated their Search and Rescue team to locate the aircraft. The airlines has had an excellent track record, it said.

Ships from countries closest to its flight path scoured a large search area for any wreckage.

"The news is very disturbing," said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the annual session of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature. He said that China's Foreign Ministry and the related departments had activated emergency response mechanism. "As soon as we have any more information, we will give it to you immediately," he said. 

The Boeing 777-200 was carrying 239 passengers, including two infants, and 12 crew members, Ahmad Jauhari said. They included 153 Chinese nationals including one infant, 38 Malaysians, and 12 Indonesians.

Seven Australians, three French nationals, four from the United States including one infant, plus passengers from several other countries were aboard in the flight.

However, Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein urged people not to speculate news on the "missing" plane.

"I've instructed all relevant agencies including TUDM (Royal Malaysian Air Force) to work together (in) locating the plane," he said.

The aircraft came into service in 2002. Malaysia has 15 Boeing 777 - 200 series.

Vice President operations control Fuad Sharuji said the airlines had got in touch with five of its flights in air to see if they had heard from the missing plane but they had got no response. Several ATC of nearby countries had also been contacted by the airline, Fuad said.

The aircraft had a code share with China Southern Airline. The plane had entered Vietnamese airspace when it lost control. 

Vietnam launched a search effort on Saturday as fears mounted over the plane's fate. Regional authorities still could not locate Flight MH370 nearly 12 hours after it lost contact with air traffic control on an overnight flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The airline has said the plane relayed no distress signal or other indications of trouble.

"The plane lost contact near Ca Mau province airspace as it was preparing to transfer to Ho Chi Minh City air traffic control," a statement posted on the official Vietnamese government website said. The plane's signal was never transferred to Ho Chi Minh air traffic control, it added. Ca Mau province is in southernmost Vietnam.

The ministry launched a rescue effort to find the plane, working in coordination with Malaysian and Chinese officials, the statement added. Contact was lost at 2:40 am local time (1840 GMT Friday), about two hours after take-off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, the carrier's CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are deeply saddened this morning with the news on MH370," he told a press conference in Malaysia. "Our focus now is to work with emergency responders and authorities, and mobilise full support," he added.

"And our thoughts and prayers are with all affected passengers and crew, and their family members." The airline and Malaysian authorities were liasing with Vietnamese officials in a bid to locate the plane, he added.

Malaysia Airlines has a good safety record. Its worst-ever crash occurred in 1977, when 93 passengers and 7 crew perished in a hijacking and subsequent crash in southern Malaysia. The pilot of MH370 was Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, who had flown for the airline since 1981, the carrier said. Its first officer Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, joined the airline in 2007. The plane was more than 11 years old.

Flight tracking website flightaware.com showed the plane flew northeast over Malaysia after takeoff and climbed to an altitude of 35,000 feet. The flight vanished from the website's tracking records a minute later while it was still climbing.

China expresses concern:

MH370's flight path passes over the South China Sea and the Indochinese peninsula before entering southern Chinese airspace.

"This news has made us all very worried," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in Beijing. China's Xinhua news agency earlier quoted Chinese aviation authorities saying the plane did not enter China's air traffic control sphere. A spokeswoman with a Thai agency that monitors the country's airspace told AFP the plane also did not cross over Thailand.

Screens at Beijing's airport indicated at first that the flight was "delayed", but later updated its status to "cancelled". An accident would be a huge blow for the carrier, which has bled money for years as it struggles to fend off competition from rivals such as fast-growing AirAsia.

It recorded its fourth straight quarterly loss during the final three months of 2013, and warned of a "challenging" year ahead due to intense competition. The carrier admitted in 2012 it was in "crisis", forcing it to implement a cost-cutting campaign centred on slashing routes and other measures.

In 2011, it chalked up a record 2.5 billion ringgit ($767 million) loss. MH370's Boeing 777 has a solid safety record, with only a handful of incidents since its introduction in the mid-1990s.

In July 2013, a Boeing 777-200 operated by South Korea's Asiana Airlines skidded off the runway upon landing at San Francisco's international airport after it clipped a seawall before touching down.

"We're closely monitoring reports on Malaysia flight MH370. Our thoughts are with everyone on board," the manufacturer said in a statement on its Twitter feed. Boeing has been beset by problems with its high-tech 787 Dreamliners put into service two years ago, including a months-long global grounding over battery problems last year.

The information vacuum regarding the flight touched off a frenzy on social media, which saw an outpouring of concern for passengers. There were no immediate signs of passenger relatives descending in large numbers on Beijing's airport.

An AFP journalist saw one woman enter the arrivals zone at the airport and break down in tears. She was led away by police. Reporters at Kuala Lumpur International Airport were barred from entering a specially-designated waiting area for relatives of those on the flight, as relatives looking somber and distraught trickled in escorted by authorities.

"They gave us no information so far," complained one man, whose niece and her husband were on the flight to go on a one-week holiday in China.