Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing that lost contact with air traffic control on 8 March 2014 at 01:20 MYT, less than an hour after takeoff. At 07:24, Malaysia Airlines reported the flight missing. The aircraft, a Boeing 777-200ER, was carrying 12 Malaysian crew members and 227 passengers from 14 nations. There has been no confirmation of any flight debris and no crash site has been found.
A multinational search and rescue effort, later reported as the largest in history, began in the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea. Within a few days, the search was extended to the Strait of Malacca and Andaman Sea. On 15 March, based on military radar data and radio “pings” between the aircraft and an Inmarsat satellite, investigators concluded that the aircraft had headed west across the Malay Peninsula, then continued on a northern or southern track for approximately seven hours. The search in the South China Sea was abandoned. Three days later, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority began searching the southern part of the Indian Ocean.