Search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Minh City as the aircraft passed into Vietnamese airspace just north of the point where the final verbal communication was made. Less than two minutes later, at 01:21, the aircraft disappeared from the radar screens of both Malaysian and Vietnamese ATC, which use secondary radar to track aircraft. No distress call was made. Flight 370 was expected to arrive in Beijing at 6:30 local time (same time zone as Malaysia; 22:30 UTC, 7 March). At 7:24, Malaysia Airlines issued a media statement that Flight 370 was missing after contact was lost with Malaysian ATC at 2:40. The time of the
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Malaysia Airlines was struggling to cut costs to compete with a wave of new, low-cost carriers in the region. In the previous three years, Malaysia Airlines had booked losses of: RM1.17 billion (US$356 million) in 2013, RM433 million in 2012, and RM2.5 billion in 2011. Malaysia Airlines lost RM443.4 million (US$137.4 million) in the first quarter of 2014 (January–March). The second quarter—the first full quarter in the aftermath of Flight 370's disappearance—saw a loss of RM307.04 million (US$97.6 million), which represented a 75-percent increase over losses from the second quarter of 2013. Industry analysts expected Malaysia Airlines to lose further