BREAKING NEWS: Malaysia Airlines flight missing: 239 people onboard

Vietnam detects last signal from missing plane off southwestern coast

    

A woman (C), believed to be the relative of a passenger onboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, cries as she talks on her mobile phone at the Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, March 8, 2014. The Malaysia Airlines Boeing B777-200 aircraft carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew lost contact with air traffic controllers early on Saturday en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, the airline said in a statement.

Vietnamese authorities said Saturday they detected the last signal from a missing Malaysia Airlines flight off Vietnam's southwest coast over the South China Sea.
Pham Hien, a Vietnamese search and rescue official, said that the signal was detected 120 nautical miles (140 miles; 225 kilometers) southwest of Vietnam's southernmost Ca Mau province.
Lai Xuan Thanh, director of Vietnam's civil aviation authority, said that the plane was over the sea and bound for Vietnamese airspace but air traffic officials in the country were never able to make contact.
The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 carrying 239 people lost contact early Saturday morning between Malaysia and Vietnam.
Meanwhile, Malaysia Airlines  will continue to run other flights as normal, its chief executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said.
Malaysia Airlines said the plane, on an overnight flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, relayed no distress signal, indications of rough weather, or other signs of trouble.
"The plane lost contact near Ca Mau province airspace as it was preparing to transfer to Ho Chi Minh City air traffic control," a statement on the official Vietnamese government website said.
Its signal never appeared to Ho Chi Minh City controllers, it said. Ca Mau province is in southernmost Vietnam, next to the Cambodian border.
Vietnam's defence ministry has launched a search for the plane, the statement added.
Malaysian authorities also dispatched a plane, two helicopters and four vessels to search seas off its east coast in the South China Sea, said Faridah Shuib, a spokeswoman for the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency.
The Philippines said it was sending three navy patrol boats and a surveillance plane to help efforts.