MITI officer among those on Boeing 777 flight MH370

Mohd Sofuan Ibrahim with his mother at KLIA before boarding the MH370 flight

KUALA LUMPUR:  International Trade and Industry Minister, Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed has expressed his sadness over what has happened to flight MH370.

He was at KLIA to meet with the family members of MITI officer, Sofuan Ibrahim, who was on the flight to report for work at their Beijing office this Monday.

"He has been working with MITI since 2011, and he was sent to Beijing to be the Second Secretary for Economics," said Datuk Seri Mustapa.

When asked to comment if he knows the situation of the flight, Datuk Seri Mustapa just said that we should conduct 'sembahyang hajat'.

Sofuan’s close friend Mohamad Iqhfan Mohamad Yazi also expressed his deepest concern over the incident.

“I am saddened over the news of the missing plane but I have to accept any eventualities that may come out in the end,” Mohamad Iqhfan.

Sofuan was also Mohamad Iqhfan’s classmate at Sekolah Alam Shah.

MH370, a code share flight with China Southern Airlines, left KLIA for Beijing at 12:41am this morning.

All communication with the plane was lost at 2:40am and no distress signal or call was received.

The flight had registered 239 passengers, 38 of them Malaysians. It was scheduled to arrive at Beijing International Airport at 6:30am local time.

Source: ASTRO Awani 

MH370 could have crashed near Vietnam, Malaysia border: admiral

KUALA LUMPUR: A search and rescue mission by Vietnamese authorities had reportedly found two oil spills, believed to be from the ill-fated Boeing 777-200 plane belonging to Malaysia Airline (MAS) which went missing early Saturday morning, its local daily reported.

The Tuoi Tre newspaper said the oil spill which was found by a Vietnamese military AN26 airplane was 20km long and 500m apart.

The spill was also located 150km from Tho Chu Island, south of Vietnam.

The AN26 plane had also found smoke coming up from the sea surface at 7.25 north, 103.2320 east.

Earlier the newspaper reported that the MH370 flight which was en route to Beijing had crashed in the South China Sea, in Malaysian territorial waters.

Rear Admiral Ngo Van Phat had been quoted as saying that the ill-fated plane crashed 300km from Vietnam’s Tho Chu Island. The island is located 102km southwest of the famous resort island of Phu Quoc, near the Malaysia – Vietnam border.

Flight MH370 was carrying 12 crew members and 227 passengers from 14 different nationalities.

The plane lost contact with the Subang Air Traffic Control at 2.40am, Saturday.

It was reported missing after its radar failed to be detected by Vietnam air traffic control. The Vietnamese then informed the Subang air traffic control.

Meanwhile, Vietnam has expressed its readiness to mobilise search and rescue mission if there is a request from the Malaysian government.

“The plane was lost in Malaysian waters. As such, Vietnam can’t deploy our rescue teams without a formal request from Malaysia,’ Major General Pham Hoai Giang, director of the Department Search and Rescue at the Defence Ministry told Tuoi Tre Vietnam.