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 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