absorb all the people flooding in from all over africa, continue to make mandela's dream a reality, maybe there's hope for the rest of us. a frantic search now under way to finding missing passenger debt in southeast asia. the story we are focusing not and we want to welcome our viewers from cnn u.s. to cnn international. a boeing 777 like this one. richard qwest reports the jet was 12 years old. it took off from kuala lumpur carrying 239 people and heading to beijing.

two hours and to the flight air traffic controllers lost all contact with the plane. chinese state media said the plane's radar signal was last detected over the ho chi minh air traffic control area in vietnam. search and rescue teams are working to locate the missing jet right now. china has deployed two ships to the south china sea to help in that effort. these are pictures of family members that had been gathering at beijing airport to greet their loved ones arriving on the plane and as you can see the distress of learning that plan would not be landing. it was to have landed saturday morning in beijing. using rather bleak language in a statement malaysia airlines said we are working with the authorities to have activated their search and rescue team to locate the aircraft. our team is currently calling the next of kin of passengers and crew. the focus at the mama was to work with emergency responders.

we will have more about that in a moment. most of the people on board flight came from china but as the ceo of malaysia airlines told reporters earlier there were passengers from a dozen other countries, too. >> there were 14 nationalities among the passengers. china, 152. plus one infant. from malaysia, 38. indonesia, 12. australia, 7. france, 3. the united states of america, usa, three plus one infant. new zealand, too. ukraine, too. canada to. russia, 1.

italy, 1 pair taiwan, 1. the netherlands, 1. and austria, won. >> the nationalities of the people on that missing airplane. the flight was due to land in beijing nearly 8 hours ago. david mackenzie joins us live from the chinese capital. i am told that you are in an area where they have now moved the families that were expecting their loved ones on that plane. >> reporter: that's right. want to bring you some news, natalie. some 12 hours or so since that lost contact with air traffic control, it appears now that the news is not good. according to the people's daily, the main mouthpiece, as it were, of the china's communist party and according to leading daily papers in vietnam, the vietnamese navy commander is now saying that the plane went down

around 150 miles south of an island off of vietnam and it appears so that this is definitely the case that this airliner went down. the family members in the hotel behind me have been streaming and not knowing what the situation was. one woman wailed out in chinese, my son was only 14 years old. she was led into crowds of reporters trying to find out any information. another man said he had a relative on the plan, looking very bleak. most of not commenting at all on this but the chinese authorities are saying they have sent these two vessels towards the south china sea to try to conduct some kind of rescue and recovery efforts. at this point barrier early but i wanted to share with you then is that it appears this plan, according to the people's daily as well as leading vietnamese

papers, the navy is saying in vietnam this plan could have gone down. >> that is big news. it i heard you correctly, that is coming from vietnam navy commander. can you repeat the name of the island that he reported it might have gone down here? >> near is a relative term. they are saying according to the sources around 153 miles outside of that island in the notion, it appears. clause might if it pans out that this is in fact the case, which it appears to be, this to be consistent with what chinese authorities were saying earlier. the plane lost contact. over vietnamese airspace. it did not enter chinese aerospace and that is a plane packed with to hundred 39

passengers and crew and it never made it here to beijing. there are scores of family and relatives, friends here at this hotel in beijing. wondering what has happened and as the details emerge, i am sure the move will change from one of anxiety to sorrow and still holding out hope that perhaps if this has gone down in the ocean there might be some chance there could be rescues in this situation. certainly the airliner has said as well they are rapidly responding and notifying next of kin and trying to mount a rescue effort and it does seem that this plane, the anxiety or the questions might have been answered and this tragically appears to have crashed. >> certainly seems that way. david, we know there can be tension between vietnam and

china. do you know anything about, obviously we are hearing this news from the vietnamese navy commander by way of the news in china. the you know about the cooperation taking place or the fastness of the search taking place in this area 100 miles from this island? >> reporter: at this stage it is too early to tell. we know that china, which had a major press conference with the foreign minister today because they are in the midst of important government meetings. he led that press conference and he had to rush to his offices at the ministry of foreign affairs to help with this effort. there certainly will be nays from both china given the fact they are saying they're sending out rescue vessels and from vietnam. considering the navy is stating the fact that this plane dropped out of the radar at that time

knew that location. these are just early reports. we will have to wait to see exactly the nature of how this plane went down and what exactly happened. it would have been at cruising altitude at that point, an unusual scenario for a plane to go down. normally the most worrying times for any commercial airliner would be at takeoff and landing and the minutes after and before those events. >> absolutely. maybe we will get more answers now. we're going to talk with an aviation expert. bringing us the nays from beijing. will be in close contact with u.s. you continue to get developments there. we want to go to greg waldron, the asian managing editor and he joins me by skype from singapore. your hopefully listening to our report from david mackenzie in beijing. what do you make of this report from the vietnamese naval

commander that this plane may have gone down in the south china sea? >> that neas has yet to be officially confirmed. has the ring of truth to me. i think if the aircraft had landed somewhere we would know about it by now. it does appear that the aircraft did go down and if it went down in the ocean, of course, at night, when this incident would have happened, it would only be today there would be able to mobilize the search apparatus to find it. the assets have been operating for a few hours presumably. this has a ring of truth to it. >> what kind of beacon or technology are they using to help find this plan? >> the aircraft has a flight data recorder and these will actually transmitted signal, very robust pieces of equipment. they will keep signaling for several weeks in any situation,

whether it goes down on land or in the sea, they will keeps signaling. the issue will come in recovering these. if this happened in the deep water heat can be a long and arduous recovery task and there is no guarantee of success. >> a grim question but this is in extremely grim and horrifying story, what might they be looking for first? what parts of the plan, possibly? >> i would expect you would see some debris floating around. you recall with the air france plane that crashed in the atlantic a few years ago, the tail floating around at sea, i suspect what you will see first is an extensive oil slick. you might see bits of white paint equipment floating around and then they could figure out where exactly the airplane landed, if indeed it did crash. >> we are talking about 777, at

36,000 feet and sunlight, not one distress signal, no particular weather in the area. what runs through your mind thinking of what could have happened. >> it is impossible to say until after the investigation has concluded. it is dangerous to speculate. i will say that it has a superb sterling safety record. probably one of the most widely used widebody aircraft used today and it is nothing like this that has ever happened with this aircraft. we'll have to wait for the investigation to determine what happened. >> you are located in the region. what do we know about malaysian airlines? the kuala lumpur region as far as being an airport of safety or

any troubles reported recently? >> malaysia airlines has a solid safety record. they flight to the u.s. tiara. some of the airlines in indonesia and the other countries are banned from flying on safety grounds. to the west in europe and the state's. malaysia airlines has a sterling safety record. >> we appreciate your time, thank you for joining us. the aging manager from singapore. we hope to talk with you again. we continue to bring you developments but what we have just learned from david mackenzie who was citing news reports there and beijing of a vietnamese commander, the naval commander saying that the plane some help information that this plane went down 153 miles from the island off the coast of vietnam. still waiting to confirm that from other sources but that is what we have just learned in the

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book now at hiltonweekends.com welcome back. our top story and we are getting new information that according to chinese and vietnamese state media the malaysia airlines flight that has been missing has crashed into the gulf of thailand. airline officials have not

confirm the report but we are expecting a news conference momentarily from kuala lumpur or the flight originated. it was on its way to beijing from kuala lumpur. the plane is believed to have last made contact with air traffic control in vietnamese air space, more than 11 hours ago. that was about two hours after leaving kuala lumpur when it would have been cruising and we are told it was cruising at 36,000 feet. families of the missing have been fearing the worst. these are pictures from earlier from the beijing airport. david mackenzie just report of the families have now been taken to a hotel in beijing. china has deployed two ships to search the south china sea along with the vietnamese officials and those search and rescue efforts the airline ceo has been concentrating on. >> our focus now is to work with

the emergency responders and mobilize full support. and our thoughts and prayers are with all affected passengers and crew and their family members. >> a little bit earlier when we were covering this story, my colleague spoke with the man who attended. >> we learned a lot that we already knew from the news conference. but we didn't learn crucial details and i am wondering if you can tell us about the rescue effort. with anything is being said in kuala lumpur about the search for the people on board. >> now but malaysia airlines has been working closely to verify the authenticity of the report appeared the report saying that

the aircraft landed in china and speaking of the rescue effort, malaysia airlines working also they're working with the vietnamese government to locate the aircraft, basically, the aircraft last -- contact was at the 180 nautical miles in the south china sea. >> the malaysia airlines is a majority state-owned airline. it is the middle of the day there. i imagine people are shocked. is the government saying much about this? >> well, there is nothing much of the government saying now, but the ministry of transport is

scheduled to give a press conference at 1:00 p.m. malaysia time at the international airport very, very soon. joh john? >> i just want to ask you a question, malaysia airlines flies a dozen triple 7, any news on what is going to happen regarding this plane that is missing? >> whether it is mechanical problem or human error they are still flying the aircraft 777-200, which the mh 370 was operated. >> speaking to us from kuala lumpur, thank you very much. >> that was a little bit earlier in our coverage, we want to check the weather, samantha moore is following that part of the story for us from the

international weather center. >> yes, natalie, weather is always a question when we have aircraft such as this one. and you can see it is very, very clear. we just saw a few clouds across southeastern asia, it is hot, humid, very tranquil as we head through today. the temperatures are very normal, all the active weather to the north with a little bit of rain right off the coast from eastern china, snow well up to the north and eastern japan. but here it is definitely a tranquil pattern. this is actually a forecast turbulence product that is put out by wfi, a vendor graphic. here we see indonesia, the philippines, and there is vietnam. and over here is any shade of turbulence, light to moderate turbulence showing up at the time of the crash. nothing at all to be concerned

about in malaysia itself. and those conditions at the time of takeoff in kuala lumpur, 26 degrees, the winds were light. the visibility was good, so weather was definitely not a factor in this incident. >> adding more questions to the tragedy. samantha moore, thank you. we'll bring you more right after this. stay with us.

two chinese rescue ships are now on their way to help search for the missing malaysia airlines jet carrying 239 people, chinese and vietnamese media quoting a vietnamese navy officer now saying the flight crashed near an island, the boeing triple 7 was traveling from kuala lumpur, when they lost contact with it. the boeing triple 7 was traveling from kuala lumpur. the airline officials say there was no distress call from the plane. they say it was carrying seven and a half hours worth of fuel,

which most certainly would have been gone by now. flight mh 370 was due to land in beijing 6:30 local time. the relatives have been now taken to a hotel nearby. we will continue to bring you any developments on that story as the search now goes on in the south china sea, but we want to bring you the latest developments we're following from ukraine. a group of unarmed military observers has been blocked from entering crimea for a second day. the delegation it from the organization for security and cooperation in europe. that is a regional security block. they were asked by ukraine's government to monitor the situation in crimea. armed men also attacked a crimean television network, one of several ukraine broadcasters taken off the air friday.

and a bulgarian man was attacked. pro-russian troops smashed open the gates of a ukraine military base and that is where we are. live, many developments certainly taking place in this region and certainly nothing to speak to any stability or any easing of the tension there. diana? >> reporter: not at all, natalie, very worrying developments. first of all let's talk about the attack on the base, which is a ukraine missile defense unit. we were just there last night speaking to the deputy commander. and russian forces had tried to storm the base. they had tried to ram the gates with their military vehicle but inside they were prevented from getting inside by the ukraine soldiers who formed a human

shield and kept them at bay. there were various forms of communication but the real ugliness took place outside when a russian defense minister pitched up. let's just hear how the deputy commander of that base described the incident. >> reporter: during the negotiations, representatives of the self defense forces turned up. then unidentified men in masks turned up and started beating the journalists, it was really brutal. the journalists were lying on the floor and the men were kicking them. >> the base is now in ukraine hands, russian forces have left. but it is a very worrying development when you consider also when we're showing you ctt footage right now of an incident in simferopol, where they then crossed the road and started to attack two photographers who were filming the incident.

you can see from that footage one of them held a gun to one of the photographer's heads and threatened to shoot him and took all of his gear. so this is a time when clearly the journalists are being threatened on the crimean peninsula. and as you said, the ukraine networks are being taken off the air. so pro-western media clearly being muzzled across the place. we have these monitors coming in, it puts a very worrying perspective on this referendum where people here will be asked to choose whether to join russia or whether to join ukraine, natalie? >> certainly an uglier and uglier scene, and you have been there with our crews, diana, stay safe, that is the news, we'll continue to bring you knew updates on the airline. thank you for joining us, gardening with rachel nicoles is

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