Nobody knows exactly what happened to a Malaysia Airlines plane that disappeared Saturday, but families of the 239 people on board are waiting and expecting the worst.

Air traffic controllers lost track of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 not long after it left Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, on its way to Beijing. More than half the passengers were Chinese nationals.

There’s even confusion about where the plane might have gone down.

Vietnamese and Chinese state media, both citing Vietnam’s military, reported the plane crashed off the southern coast of Vietnam.

But the reports are incorrect, said Malaysia’s acting transport minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein. “The CA (Civil Aviation Authority) says that is not true, and our foreign office says it is not true,” he said.

China, Vietnam, Singapore, and Malaysia are conducting search and rescue operations south of Tho Chu island in the South China Sea, reported Xinhua, China’s official news agency. Ships, helicopters and airplanes are being utilized.

The Boeing 777-200 departed Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 12:41 a.m. and was expected to land in Beijing at 6:30 a.m., a 2,300-mile (3,700 kilometer) trip. It never arrived.

The plane carried 227 passengers, two of them infants, and 12 crew members, the airline said. Air traffic control in Subang, in Malaysia, had last contact with the plane.

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