Search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was a scheduled flight in the early morning hours of 8 March 2014 from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Beijing, China—one of two daily flights operated by Malaysia Airlines from its hub at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) to Beijing Capital International Airport. Flight 370 was scheduled to depart at 00:35 local time (MYT; ) and arrive at 06:30 local time (CST; UTC+08:00). At 00:41 MYT, Flight 370 took off with 239 persons aboard—two pilots, ten cabin crew, and 227 passengers (152 of whom were Chinese citizens). Flight 370 was cleared by air traffic control to proceed
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared from the radar screen at Kuala Lumpur ACC and was lost about the same time on radar at Ho Chi Minh ACC, which reported that the aircraft was at the nearby waypoint BITOD. Air traffic control uses secondary radar, which relies on a signal emitted by a transponder on each aircraft; therefore, the transponder was no longer functioning on Flight 370 after 01:21. The final transponder data indicated that the aircraft was flying at its assigned cruise altitude of flight level 350 and was travelling at true airspeed. There were few clouds around this point, and no rain or