Family of Chinese passenger on missing MAS flight MH370 makes contact with his phone

Kuala Lumpur : Desperate family members of passengers onboard the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 have urged MAS to use satellite technology to pick up signals from mobile phones on the aircraft before they run out of batteries, Singapore’s The Sunday Times reported yesterday.

A Chinese family claimed they had successfully reached the mobile phone of a passenger on board the flight, which is still missing after it lost contact with air traffic controllers on Saturday. A video clip of a man dialling the number of his elder brother was shown on a Beijing Television’s news bulletin. The call got connected, but no one picked up.

The man, who did not give his name, spoke to reporters at a Malaysia Airlines briefing in Beijing, and claimed that he made a total of three calls, but no one answered. An extensive air and sea search resumed for the third day this morning for the missing Boeing 777-200ER aircraft, as more questions arose over its last known location and the identity of some of its passengers on board.

Vietnamese authorities had found fragments believed to be the composite inner door and tail section of the 11-year-old passenger jet, 50 miles south-southwest of Though Chu Island. Malaysian authorities also found oil slicks some 20 nautical miles from MH370’s last known position when it disappeared from radar screens without even a distress call or signal.

Officials investigating the disappearance of flight MH370 with 239 people on board are narrowing the focus of their inquiries on the possibility that it disintegrated in mid-flight. The MAS jet vanished after climbing to a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing in the early hours of Saturday, but search teams have not been able to make any confirmed discovery of wreckage in seas beneath the plane’s flight path almost 48 hours after it took off.

Malaysia Airlines (MAS) is flying the first batch of families of passengers on board flight MH370 to Kuala Lumpur today. The first batch would comprise family members of only two passengers as they have valid passports and visa to Malaysia. Up to five family members per passenger would be flown to Kuala Lumpur in the subsequent flights offered by MAS, as the airline wants to bring as many families of the passengers to Kuala Lumpur to get the latest updates. March 10, 2014.

Bureau Report