It is an unprecedented mystery among aviation disasters, investigators say, but they suspect Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 ''disintegrated'' in midair. If so, in that instant it swept away the lives of 227 passengers and 12 crew with stories rich and varied: the young Sydney couple Yuan Li and Naijun Gu, travelling to visit their baby and toddler living with their grandparents in China; the acclaimed Chinese calligrapher; the young Indonesian beginning a new career; the middle-aged Australians on an adventure; the pair of impostors travelling on stolen passports.
The passenger manifest is an outwardly unremarkable document. But behind the columns of capitalised names, nationalities and ages are 227 unique stories. Seventy-four years separates the youngest of the passengers, two-year-old Moheng Wang, and the oldest, 76-year-old Rusheng Liu.
Fears are growing that the Boeing 777 that vanished over the South China Sea early on Saturday may never be found.
Authorities in Kuala Lumpur ordered the search to be intensified on Monday after they discounted that objects reportedly seen in the sea on Sunday were from the aircraft. Sixty hours after it abruptly disappeared from radar, the search effort involving 46 ships and 34 planes from nine countries had hit a dead-end.
The only hope is that chemical tests under way in Kuala Lumpur will show that an oil slick spotted in the South China Sea is from the aircraft. But such spills from ships and exploration are frequent in the area.
Azaharuddin Abdul Rahman, head of Malaysia's Civil Aviation Department, said the plane's disappearance was "puzzling" and perplexing" and the way it vanished "unprecedented".
The possibility of hijacking had not been discounted, Mr Azaharuddin said. Nor had other possibilities, including that it turned back two hours into the six-hour flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
The discovery that two of the passengers were using stolen passports exposed a key flaw in international travel security, Interpol said. It revealed more than a billion travellers last year had boarded planes without their passports being checked against its database of 40 million lost or stolen passports.
Interpol secretary-general Ronald Noble asked why countries "would wait for a tragedy to put prudent security measures in place at borders and boarding gates".
"Now we have a real case where the world is speculating whether the stolen passport holders were terrorists, while Interpol is asking why only a handful of countries worldwide are taking care to make sure the persons processing stolen passports are not boarding international flights.'' Australia's screening of departing passengers does capture passports on Interpol's list of stolen documents, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said.
Booking information showed the two passengers bought the tickets together at a travel agency in Pattaya, a resort city outside Bangkok where passport rackets thrive. Travelling on the stolen Austrian and Italian passports, they had booked the flight to Beijing, where they would not have had to clear customs before taking another flight to Amsterdam.
"I am still perturbed,'' Malaysia's Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said. ''Can't these immigration officials think? Italian and Austrian [passport holders] but with Asian faces?"
"Every indicator shows some sort of security lapse,'' a Malaysian security official said as Prime Minister Najib Razak ordered an urgent review of his country's air travel security procedures.
A senior source in the investigation in Malaysia said: ''The fact that we are unable to find any debris so far appears to indicate that the aircraft is likely to have disintegrated at around 35,000 feet.''
If the plane had hit the water intact, search teams would have expected to find a fairly concentrated pattern of debris.
Malaysia's air force chief, Rodzali Daud, said: ''The military radar indicated that the aircraft may have made a turnback, and in some parts this was corroborated by civilian radar.''
''I can only pray for a miracle,'' said Daniel Liau, the organiser of an exhibition in Malaysia attended by the acclaimed calligrapher Meng Gaosheng, who boarded the flight with 18 other artists plus six family members and four staff.
with Rick Feneley, Stephen Wright and agencies
