KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia —Vietnamese air force planes spotted two large oil slicks Saturday in the region where a Malaysia Airlines jetliner disappeared, the first sign that the Boeing 777 with 239 people aboard had crashed.
The air force planes were part of a multinational search operation launched after Flight MH370 fell off radar screens less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing.
WHY THE MALAYSIA AIRLINES JET MIGHT HAVE DISAPPEARED
The most dangerous parts of a flight are takeoff and landing. Rarely do incidents happen when a plane is cruising seven miles above the earth.
So the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines jet well into its flight Saturday morning over the South China Sea has led aviation experts to assume that whatever happened was quick and left the pilots no time to place a distress call.
It could take investigators months, if not years, to determine what happened to the Boeing 777 flying from Malaysia’s capital city of Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Some possibilities include structural failure, bad weather, engine failure or a criminal act.
The oil slicks sighted off the southern tip of Vietnam were each between 10 kilometers and 15 kilometers long, the Vietnamese government said in a statement.
There was no immediate confirmation that the slicks were related to the missing plane, but the government said they were consistent with the kind of slick that would be produced by the two fuel tanks of a crashed jetliner.
After the oil was spotted, the air search was suspended for the night and was to resume Sunday morning. A sea search continued, the airline said.
The jet was believed to be flying at cruising altitude when it vanished.
Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said there was no indication the pilots had sent a distress signal, suggesting that whatever trouble befell the plane happened quickly, perhaps in a sudden catastrophe.
The plane was last inspected 10 days ago and was “in proper condition,” Ignatius Ong, CEO of Malaysia Airlines subsidiary Firefly airlines, said at a news conference.
Two-thirds of the jet’s passengers were from China. The rest were from elsewhere in Asia, North America and Europe.
The flight manifest identifies two Canadians as Xiaomo Bai, 37, and Muktesh Mukherjee, 42.
An airline spokeswoman says company officials are not able to get in touch with their families but have contacted the Canadian embassy in Malaysia.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper tweeted his condolences over the missing plane.
“Our thoughts & deepest prayers are with those affected by the disappearance of the plane in Malaysia,” Harper said.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/03/07/malaysia-airlines-loses-contact-with-flight-mh370-carrying-239-people-from-kuala-lumpur-to-beijing/