Joint Agency Coordination Centre of contact for information about the search for media and families of Flight 370 passengers. On 8 March 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Beijing, China with 239 persons aboard; a search in the South China Sea and Gulf of Thailand was promptly initiated near the aircraft's last voice contact with air traffic control and final contact with secondary radar (the type of radar used by air traffic control). A week after the disappearance, Malaysia announced that military radar determined that the aircraft had traveled west across the Malay Peninsula after being lost
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Airlines from China, where the majority of passengers were from, were down 60% in March. In late March, several major Chinese ticketing agencies—eLong, LY.com, Qunar and Mango—discontinued the sale of airline tickets to Malaysia and several large Chinese travel agencies reported a 50-percent drop in tourists compared to the same period the year before. China was the third largest source of visitors to Malaysia prior to Flight 370's disappearance, accounting for 1.79 million tourists in 2013. One market analyst predicted a 20–40% drop in Chinese tourists to Malaysia, resulting in a loss of 4–8 billion yuan (RM2.1–4.2 billion; US$0.65–1.3 billion).