Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: TIMELINE of Events from Jet's Midnight Take-off to its Mysterious Vanishing

Saturday, 8 March

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 takes off at 12:21am local time from Kuala Lumpur with 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board.

The jetliner was supposed to land in Beijing at 6:30am.

Malaysia Airline loses contact with the passenger jet within two hours of take-off and the plane is declared missing 90 minutes later when it failed to report in Chinese airspace.

No panic call received from the plane and weather in the flight path was clear at the time of losing contact.

The Malaysia Airline jet had the last contact with air traffic controllers 120 nautical miles off the east coast of the Malaysian town of Kota Bharu.

Mystery grows thick as the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) confirms the jetliner never checked into the airspace between Malaysia and Ho Chi Minh City.

Fears of a crash grow as flight tracking website flightaware.com reveals that the plane flew over Malaysia and climbed an altitude of 35,000 feet but lost contact later.

A search and rescue operation is launched in the South China Sea by Malaysia and Vietnam while China dispatches two maritime rescue ships to help with the search. The United States and other countries join the effort later.

As people across the world hope for a miracle, the search ships fail to find any clue of flight MH370's whereabouts.

The Airline releases the passengers list that includes 154 people from China and Taiwan, 38 from Malaysia, seven from Indonesia and six from Australia. The list also shows people from other countries around the world.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang appeals to the Malaysian government to speed up the search and rescue operation.

Report of a fatal crash surfaces when Vietnam confirms seeing a giant oil slick and column of smoke in its waters.

The terror attack theory looms as two "missing" passengers of the flight MH370 reveal that their passports were stolen last year in Thailand.

Sunday, 9 March

Radar signals indicate the flight may have turned back from its scheduled route to Beijing before disappearing.

The Malaysian rescue teams intensify their search operation off the western coast.

The FBI starts investigating the terror angle after it emerged that two impostors had boarded the plane carrying stolen passports of an Italian and an Austrian. Reports claim the two passengers had Asian looks.

The Malaysian counter terrorism units activated to analyse a possible terror attack angle.

Investigators start looking at the possibility of a mid-air disintegration of the plane and keep the search operation on to find the wreckage.

Monday, 10 March

The mystery surrounding the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 stretches to the third day; No sign of mid-air explosion spotted by the American spy satellite imagery.

Fearing a possible bomb explosion in the Boeing 777, seven countries resume rescue operation in the seas around Malaysia and Vietnam with the help of dozens of ships and aircraft.

New twist emerges as reports in Chinese media claim that some passengers' mobile phones were ringing when their relatives called, but the calls were never received.

Malaysia's Civil Aviation Authority chief, Azharuddin Abdul Rahmanthe, says the missing plane is an "unprecedented aviation mystery" and that a hijack cannot be ruled out.

Malaysia Airline draws flak in Chinese media for its handling of the situation, and the company's share plunges

China begins using its orbiting satellites in a bid to find the missing flight; FBI also joins Interpol's search

Tuesday, 11 March

As the mystery of the missing MH370 flight stretches into a fourth day, at least 40 ships and 34 aircraft are taking part in the search in the seas off Vietnam and Malaysia.

China Airlines reveals that a terror threat was made against the Beijing Capital International Airport days prior to the abrupt disappearance of the flight.

One of the men found with a stolen passport is not affiliated with terrorist organisations, Malaysian police said. Iranian Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad, 19, was allegedly migrating to Germany.