Fears are growing for 239 people aboard a Malaysian Airlines flight to Beijing after it disappeared from air traffic control screens two hours after leaving Kuala Lumpur.
The flight, which left the Malaysian capital at 12.41am on Saturday morning, had been due to arrive in Beijing at 6.30am but disappeared from air traffic controllers’ screens at 2.40am.
If the aircraft has been lost, it will be much the most serious crash involving a Boeing 777, one of the safest aircraft ever to fly. While a 777 crash-landed at London’s Heathrow airport without loss of life in 2008, the only previous passenger fatalities on a 777 were those of three people who died when as Asiana Airlines 777 crash-landed last year at San Francisco International Airport.