GarryP

The Malaysian Airlines flight from KL to Beijing has gone missing en-route. It should have landed 22:30 GMT, but went missing 18:40GMT. That would put it somewhere over Vietnam by my reckoning, but it could have turned back earlier. Either way, given its 1:12 GMT - its not looking good.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26492748

Loss of track here :

Pollyana

Not good
Guys on PPrune reckon it woud be down nea Hanoi somewhere. Wouldn't think its an easy area to search.

GarryP

The FlightRadar24 track looks like this :

http://www.flightradar24.com/2014-03...MAS370/2d81a27

It was at 35,000 feet, off the coast, then the very last update has them off course and heading, and at 0 feet. No change of squawk or anything.

227 passengers onboard.

irishbloo

Just read this.Doesn't look good.Hope its not as bad as it looks.

GarryP

Realistically there are not many good scenarios that have an aircraft at 35,000feet in the cruise, over water, and then nothing except something at 0ft.

People will be considering bombs, or airframe failure, neither of which is good.

Pollyana

Thanks for the update, been looking for a track map on it.
Sobering to be watching news on Sky about it and to be reading the thread in the Qantas Club waiting to board a flight.
Good thing I'm just a fatalist so it doesn't freak me out.

Poor beggars, not a good scenario

moneypenny20

How deep is the water there, do 'we' know?

jad n rich

I hope there is news soon, can only imagine the horror those related are going through

GarryP

Relatively shallow, about 50m IIRC

GarryP

It's notable that no sign of wreckage has been reported so far. It would be expected that a helicopter would have been sent to the coords last reported, and if the aircraft had had the expected catastrophic airframe failure expected, there should be some sign.

It's also expected that there should be some report from fishermen in the area (there are lots of boats in that region) for from a gas drill rig at that spot.

Either the authorities are trying to keep a lid on things, or the aircraft had enough structural integrity to travel a significant distance from the last know coords.

With darkness coming soon, if they haven't found it already, it will be another 12 hours before it can be found.

Here are the last ADS-B updates from the aircraft :
according to pilots, this point in the track would be where a change in track might be expected. As you can see there are two packets from points along an expected track, but with zero altitude - which suggests the data is in some way corrupt. No idea if this due to later processing, or from the electrical system going down.

The 777 is a fly-by-wire system, but with some manual backup.

NigelWaring

Looks to me as if it would have gone down about midway between Malaysia and the southern tip of Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand.

Pollyana

From Pprune, based on the coordinates in the message sent to local fishing vessels.....

RedDragon2008

Oil slicks now found

ozzieeagle

Not sure how blowing up a plane loaded with SE Asians benefits militant Islamists

It's leaning that way now though.

TimbersBack

Latest is two passengers were on false/stolen passports .. read into that what you may