Post date: Mar 08, 2014 2:47:18 PM
Family members of passenger thought to be aboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew wait for news of the missing aircraft that vanished on a scheduled flight from Malaysia to China.
BEIJING, CHINA (MARCH 8, 2014) (REUTERS) - Anxious Chinese relatives of a passenger believed to be on a Malaysia Airlines flight missing between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing waited at a hotel nearBeijing airport on Saturday (March 8).
The Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew went missing off the Vietnamese coast as it flew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and was presumed to have crashed.There were no reports of bad weather and no sign why the Boeing, powered byRolls-Royce Trent engines, would have vanished from radar screens about an hour after take-off.
By nightfall in the region, there were no signs of the plane or any wreckage, some 17 hours after it went missing.
Relatives were taken to a hotel near Beijing airport, given a room and asked to wait for information from the airline.
Xue Yalian said her husband, who works in Singapore, was thought to have been aboard the missing aircraft.
"(I thought it was on the) afternoon of the 6th. He said it was on the 7th. But I didn't know what time it was on the 7th. It was yesterday's flight. I just always thought it was yesterday's flight. He was in Singapore (working)," she said.
Xue said airline authorities had not provided information about the aircraft's disappearance.
"I never knew (what was going on). Someone in Singapore told me that something happened to the plane. And then I found out," said Xue.
Xue and her family have been given a room by Malaysia Airlines at the Holiday Inn Lido hotel near Beijing Airport.
Chinese media said at least 24 artists and their families, including a well-known calligrapher were aboard, returning from an art exchange forum,