Hope I'm wrong here, but these reports of the plane landing don't add up. Even a complete loss of radio and transponder communication would still leave you with ACARS (a kind of text messaging between aircraft and their operations center) and the B777 is usually equipped with a satellite phone for contacting the company or ATC. It would truly be an extraordinary cascade of multiple failures for a 777 to be completely unable to communicate with the ground while in flight.

I also doubt that an aircraft can just fly into Chinese airspace without being noticed and intercepted. Even without a transponder, you'd still have the plane showing up on radar as a primary target.

Like I said, I truly hope I'm wrong, but in an age when any sicko can set up a Twitter or Facebook account without too much trouble and say pretty much anything they want, unverified sources in social media are not legitimate news sources.

Aviation sources in China report that radar data suggest a steep and sudden descent of the aircraft, during which the track of the aircraft changed from 024 degrees to 333 degrees. The aircraft was estimated to contact Ho Chi Minh Control Center (Vietnam) at 01:20L, but contact was never established.

It appears that they took off, Flightaware lost tracking about 90 mins later due to the sites blind spots. Flightradar and ATC lost tracking another 20-30 mins when the transponder and radio failed. Then Vietnam and China lost radar tracking somewhere over Vietnam.

Aviation Herald has more info than I've seen elsewhere.

According to The Aviation Herald's radar data the aircraft was last regularly seen at 17:22Z (01:22L) about half way between Kuala Lumpur and Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam) at FL350 over the Gulf of Thailand about 260nm northnortheast of Kuala Lumpur 40 minutes into the flight, followed by anomalies in the radar data of the aircraft over the next minute (the anomalies may be related to the aircraft but could also be caused by the aircraft leaving the range of the receiver).

Aviation sources in China report that radar data suggest a steep and sudden descent of the aircraft, during which the track of the aircraft changed from 024 degrees to 333 degrees. The aircraft was estimated to contact Ho Chi Minh Control Center (Vietnam) at 01:20L, but contact was never established.

I sure hope it was hijacked or something much lighter.

Has the press conference started?

Is there any livestream of the MH press conference?

:( Source/link?

That's horrible.

Wikipedia reports:
The plane was previously involved in an incident in Shanghai Pudong International Airport on August 9, 2012, when the tip of its wing collided with a China Eastern Airlines Airbus A340-600

not good data :td: sounds like AS 261 :td:

<redacted>

Fuel exhaustion time can be readily ascertained by comparing the amount of fuel loaded and extrapolating from there how much flight time one would have under the most optimal rate of fuel consumption that could be expected given the takeoff weight. Fuel exhaustion time is an important concept in Search and Rescue as it represents the point in time when, barring the discovery of the aircraft having landed somewhere undetected, the aircraft has to be down.

Speculating about causes here is utterly pointless at this point. There is simply too little information with which to make even an educated guess.

Sydney Morning Herald are reporting

"An unconfirmed report from a flight tracking website said the plane had plunged more than 200 metres and changed course in the last minute that it had transmitted data."

http://www.smh.com.au/world/malaysia...308-hvgnx.html

They also report a flight tracker site as saying that contact was lost 20 minutes after take off...while others here have mentioned 2 hours 40 minutes.

Thoughts & prayers are with family & friends of those aboard.

Reiterating others: Is there any way to watch the press conf. online?

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/M.../ZBAA/tracklog

Unless flightaware is reporting this backwards - the 333 to 24 degree course was at takeoff, not the "end" (?) of the flight.

FT ers figured that out 2 hours ago.

Bad weather in that area during the time they were flying? What if it is like the Air France flight?

Malaysia Airlines said Saturday it lost contact with a plane carrying 239 people on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and search and rescue teams were trying to locate the aircraft.

Flight MH370 lost contact with the Subang air traffic control near Kuala Lumpur at 2:40 a.m. Saturday (18:40 GMT Friday).

According to China's state news agency, the plane lost communication over Vietnam with control department in Ho Chi Minh City at 1:20 a.m. The radar signal also was lost, Xinhua reported.

The flight was operated on the Boeing 777-200 aircraft. It departed Kuala Lumpur at 12:41 a.m. Saturday (16:41 GMT Friday) and was expected to land in Beijing at 6:30 a.m. Saturday (22:30 GMT Friday).

The plane was carrying 227 passengers, including two infants, and 12 crew members, the airline said.

http://news.yahoo.com/malaysia-loses...015404362.html

One post I've seen says absolutely no weather issues along the entire flight path.

CNN weather people are saying that weather was not a problem in the area.

So it crashed over water or land?

Go to CNN or FOX news. It is 6:43 PST on now live.

hoping they are safe.

The airline has been making management available to the press, including CNN currently.

It's in 14 minutes from now.

Press conference coming up in about 13 minutes, 11:00 am local time

That there are no major reported weather problems in the area doesn't eliminate the possibility of sudden, extreme, highly localized turbulence.

Very likely that the plane crashed into the ocean and that is why there is no communications. If it had landed anywhere they would have communicated with MAS hq. 35000 ft over the ocean and had contact with Ho Chi Min.

As of 10:21 local time (half an hour ago), Nanning airport said the plane did not land there

Source (in chinese) http://live.sina.com.cn/zt/l/v/news/FJSL/

Arrival Boards at Beijing still show MH 370 as delayed.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BiLAIqECUAAawZv.jpg

KUL ATC said it lost contact with plane somewhere over Vietnam. Could be lightning.. As that region is infamous for heavy turbulence due to storms too.

There is rural hilly terrain over parts of Vietnam still. In fact, a crash in 1971 by Cathay Pacific was over Vietnam too.. But that was due to a bomb. And it took search and rescue teams days to find it.

Not sure how many people know about this airline, but they've always struck me as a competent, professional airline. I've taken their soon-to-be-discontinued LAX-KUL flight (ending their service to the USA), and just a couple of months ago I flew a couple of their flights within Malaysia.

It's certainly possible that there are flyertalkers on board, especially since MH is a oneworld partner. That's the primary reason I recently flew them within southeast Asia as an alternative to AirAsia (same fares, but I got lounges and miles with my elite status). They kind of feel like a little sister to SQ and, indeed, they used to be the same company. <redacted>

... I recently flew SIN-PEK on SQ, as PEK in a China Air hub, and therefore a decent place for Star Alliance polar connections to the USA. It would be somewhat less likely that you'd fly that route on MH, because they're a oneworld carrier. The flight is also too far (2700 miles) to be a good use of Avios miles, so perhaps that too would be a disincentive for flyertalkers.

Until the aircraft is located there will be no way to know for sure what happened (other than based on reported fuel loads, the plane is no longer flying) everything else is pure speculation.

That being said, as soon as I saw the news on BBC, my first stop was flyertalk, as the folks here are generally better informed and less prone to idle speculation.

Unfortunately, that was our only hope! :(

Lots of financial problems over the years for this airline....

http://www.kinibiz.com/story/issues/...r-airline.html

It just makes me feel sick.

But GB the plane was off the coast of Vietnam and not over Vietnam. This plane probably had a mechanical.

I just heard a CNN interview where the person in question (reporter based in KUL?) was making the same point.

An MH official has said specifically that the plane did not land in Nanning.

The last hope now is the plane was indeed hijacked, landed and authorities are covering up now before they are ready to make official announcement...