(Reuters) - A
Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew crashed in
the South China Sea on Saturday, Vietnamese state media said, quoting a
senior naval official.
The
Boeing
777-200ER flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing had been missing for
hours when Vietnam's Tuoi Tre news quoted Admiral Ngo Van Phat as saying
he had asked boats from an island off south Vietnam to rush to the
crash site.
If the report is confirmed, it would mark the U.S.-built airliner's deadliest crash since entering service 19 years ago.
Malaysia
Airlines
had yet to confirm that the aircraft had crashed. It said earlier in
the day that no distress signal had been given and cited early
speculation that the plane may have landed in Nanming in southern China.
Flight
MH370, operating a Boeing 777-200ER aircraft, last had contact with air
traffic controllers 120 nautical miles off the east coast of the
Malaysian town of Kota Bharu, Malaysia Airlines chief executive Ahmad
Jauhari Yahya said in a statement read to a news conference in Kuala
Lumpur.
Malaysia and
Vietnam were conducting a joint search and rescue, he said but gave no
details. China has also sent two maritime rescue ships to the South
China Sea to help in any rescue, state television said on one of its
microblogs.
"We are
extremely worried," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in
Beijing before the Vietnamese report that the plane had crashed. "The
news is very disturbing. We hope everyone on the plane is safe."
The
flight left Kuala Lumpur at 12.21 a.m. (11.21 a.m. ET Friday) but no
trace had been found of the plane hours after it was due to land in the
Chinese capital at 6.30 a.m. (5.30 p.m. ET Friday) the same day.
"We deeply regret that we have lost all contacts with flight MH370," Jauhari said.
Malaysia
Airlines said people from 14 nationalities were among the 227
passengers, including at least 152 Chinese, 38 Malaysians, 12
Indonesians, six Australians and three Americans. It also said a Chinese
infant and an American infant were on board.
If
it is confirmed that the plane has crashed, the loss would mark the
second fatal accident involving a Boeing 777 in less than a year and by
far the worst since the jet entered service in 1995.
An
Asiana Airlines Boeing 777-200ER crash-landed in San Francisco in July
2013, killing three passengers and injuring more than 180.
Boeing
said it was aware of reports that the Malaysia Airlines plane was
missing and was monitoring the situation but had no further comment. The
flight was operating as a China Southern Airlines codeshare.
An
official at the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) said the
plane had failed to check in as scheduled at 1721 GMT while it was
flying over the sea between Malaysia and Ho Chi Minh city.
