(Image source from: Malaysia Airlines flight crashes into South China Sea)

The missing Malaysia Airlines flight with 239 people on-board had reportedly plunged into the South China Sea. Flight MH370 had five Indian passengers, including a woman from Chennai, when the plane crashed in the early hours of Saturday.

Beijing International airport officials the five Indians had boarded Flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur. The passenger's list reveal that the five Indian citizens are Chandrika Sharma (female), Prahlad Shirsat, Vinod Suresh Kolekar, Chetana Vinod Kolekar and Swanand Vinod Kolekar.

The plane was untraceable by International aviation officials for several hours after it lost cantact. But unconfirmed reports suggest that the Malaysia Airlines flight crashed 153 miles off Cambodia.

The Boeing 777-200 aircraft with 227 passengers on-board was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

The fateful plane had 5 Indians, 152 Chinese, 38 Malaysians, 7 Indonesians, 6 Australians, 4 including an infant from the US, 3 French,2 Canadians, 2 New Zealanders, 2 Ukrainians, 1 each from Italy, Russia, Austria, the Netherlands and Taiwan.

An official statement of the airlines stated that authorities have started a search and rescue operation to locate the missing aircraft.

Till date Malaysia Airlines (MAS) has had few plane crash. The last major accident was in 1977, when a jet plane crashed with 100 people on-board. And in October 2013, a Twin Otter aircraft, of the MASwings, crash-landed in Borneo island in Sabah state, Malaysia, which resulted in the death of a passenger and a co-pilot.

(Picture Source: mirror.co.uk)

(AW: Pratima Tigga)