No Filipinos aboard missing Malaysian plane

A woman wipes her tears after walking out of the reception center and holding area for family and friend of passengers aboard a missing Malaysia Airlines plane, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Saturday, March 8, 2014. Search teams across Southeast Asia scrambled on Saturday to find a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 with 239 people on board that disappeared from air traffic control screens over waters between Malaysia and Vietnam early that morning. AP

MANILA, Philippines—No Filipino was aboard Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines jet that was carrying 239 passengers when it lost contact with traffic controllers early Saturday morning, the airline management said.

The Malaysian flag carrier in a statement said the passengers were of 14 different nationalities, including 152 Chinese. There were 12 crew members and two infants.

Following are the nationalities of the passengers:

1.    China – 152 plus 1 infant

2.    Malaysia – 38

3.    Indonesia – 12

4.    Australia – 6

5.    France – 3

6.    United States of America – 3 pax plus 1 infant

7.    New Zealand – 2

8.    Ukraine – 2

9.    Canada – 2

10.  Russia – 1

11.  Italy – 1

12.  Taiwan – 1

13.  Netherlands – 1

14.  Austria – 1

The Malaysia Airlines said it lost contact with its Flight MH370 at 2:40 a.m. (Malaysian time), hours after take-off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, the carrier’s CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said. It was scheduled to land in Beijing at 6:30 a.m.

As of posting time, search operations were ongoing to locate the missing plane.

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