Malaysian Airlines MH370 has disappeared over Vietnam. It failed to respond to a status check from ATC in Ho Chi Minh City.
Reuters Reports:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/08/us-malaysiaairlines-flight-idUSBREA2701720140308 (http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/08/us-malaysiaairlines-flight-idUSBREA2701720140308)
I checked FlightAware and the last recorded transponder entry is at 1:01AM, 19 mins before ATC failed to reach them.
They had just reached 35k altitude and 267 knots then the updates stopped.
I mapped the last coordinates and it had just crossed the coast of China, took an odd course change to the NW and then it stopped reporting.
158 Chinese nationals
3 Americans
They are reporting it was in Vietnamese airspace, but the last coordinates put it off the coast of China east of Hainan Island.
Should be an interesting story behind this when everything is revealed.
News reporting that it is aircraft 9M-MRO, which underwent some wing damage in 2012.
Collided with a A346 during taxiing in August 2012.
http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=147571
(http://pic.feeyo.com/pic/20120810/201208100956203830.jpg)
Sudden catastrophic airframe failure? Bomb? SAM? Khmer Rouge?
Getting interesting as now reported two passengers reportedly on the plane based upon passports were not actually on the plane and both had reported stolen passports. One from Italy and the other from Austria.
Search teams found streaks of oil off the coast of Vietnam. NY Daily News said that terrorism could be possible.
www.nydailynews.com/news/world/oil-slicks-malaysia-airlines-planes-crash-site-terrorism-article-1.1715004
For those who are interested, here is the link to FlightAware that shows the last tracked position of MH370.
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/MAS370 (http://flightaware.com/live/flight/MAS370)
You will see that the last known GPS Lat/Long is no where near the Malacca Strait or Vietnam proper. According to this, it stopped reporting its location shortly after crossing into the Chinese mainland.
If your ID transponder is malfunctioning to the point that ATC can't identify your position (or it has been turned off), what do you think a foreign national is going to do with you?
When I saw the report that a Chinese IT student saw a plane in the water via a sat image in the Strait, I kept wondering why someone was trying so hard to get people to look the other way? Who would be looking at random sat images thousands of miles from the known flight path? A diesel sub could leave an oil slick anywhere.
I hate to sound like Tom Clancy, but something is really amiss here. It is all very, very weird.
Plane wreckage washes ashore on Reunion Island east of Madagascar. Believed to be MH370.
Per Reuters:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/30/us-malaysia-airlines-crash-reunion-idUSKCN0Q32EM20150730 (http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/30/us-malaysia-airlines-crash-reunion-idUSKCN0Q32EM20150730)
Authorities study plane debris found off Madagascar for links to missing MH370
French authorities are studying a piece of plane debris found on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean to determine whether it came from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which vanished last year in one of the biggest mysteries in aviation history.
A person familiar with the matter told Reuters the part was almost certainly from a Boeing 777, the type of aircraft operated by Malaysia Airlines on the ill-fated flight, but that it had not yet been established if it was a piece of the missing plane.
France's BEA air crash investigation agency said it was examining the debris, found washed up on the French island east of Madagascar, in coordination with Malaysian and Australian authorities, but that it was too early to draw conclusions.
Nevertheless, the discovery could be the biggest breakthrough in the so far fruitless search for MH370, which disappeared without a trace in March 2014 carrying 239 passengers and crew while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Most of the passengers were Chinese.
There have been four serious accidents involving 777s. Only MH370 is thought to have crashed south of the equator.
Investigators believe someone deliberately switched off the plane's transponder before diverting it thousands of miles off course. Search efforts led by Australia have focused on a broad expanse of the southern Indian Ocean off Australia, roughly 3,700 km (2,300 miles) from Reunion Island.
Malaysia said it had sent a team to Reunion to verify whether the washed-up debris was from MH370. The island, about 600 km (370 miles) east of Madagascar, is a French Indian Ocean territory.
"The part has not yet been identified and it is not possible at this hour to ascertain whether the part is from a B777 and/or from MH370," a BEA spokesman said in an email on Wednesday.
The plane part, which according to aviation experts may be a moving wing surface known as a "flaperon" situated close to the fuselage, usually contains markings or part numbers that should allow it to be traced to an individual aircraft, the person familiar with the matter said.
Greg Feith, an aviation safety consultant and former crash investigator at the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said his sources at Boeing had told him the piece was from a 777.