Malaysia Airlines declares the flight missing

Malaysia Airlines issued a press statement at 23:24 UTC announcing that MH370 was missing. The statement came after hours of confusion between Kuala Lumpur and Ho Chi Minh ACCs about who last had the flight, and after Chinese ATC had been queried. At the time of the statement the aircraft’s SDU was still a live Inmarsat terminal — a fact not yet understood by the airline or the search-and-rescue system. ICAO’s later GADSS tracking standards were written in the shadow of this delay.