

A press conference held by Malaysia Airlines at the Lido Hotel in Beijing, March 8, 2014



A group of Chinese artists was reportedly among the passengers onboard the missing Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 following an exhibition in Kuala Lumpur, according to South China Morning Post.

The group was comprised of 19 painters and calligraphers, six relatives and four staff members from the Chinese organizer’s company who had been in Kuala Lumpur for an exhibition organized by Art Peninsular Enterprise in Malaysia and ibicn.com.

The artists came from Beijing, Shanghai, Shandong, Jiangsu, Sichuan and Xinjiang and included Meng Gaoseheng, the deputy chairman of the China Calligraphers’ Association and Memetjan Abran, an Uygur painter who was one of the youngest artists in the group. The oldest artist in the group was 76-year-old Liu Rusheng from Nanjing, who was accompanied by his wife.

Stories surrounding identities of the passengers onboard MH370 have slowly been emerging since Malaysia Airlines released a manifest list of missing people last night.

TheBeijinger reported yesterday that two students of Beijing’s Lycée Francais International de Pekin, Hadrien Wattrelos and Zhao Yan, were believed to have been onboard accompanied by Hadrien’s mother and sister along with Beijing expats and Canadian citizens Mukherjee and Bai Xiaomo.

Caixin Online reported that a pregnant woman and several Buddhists were also believed to have been onboard the missing flight.

Malaysian authorities are now investigating the identities of at least four passengers onboard the plane who managed to get on with stolen passports.

The flight was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members and is still presumed to have crashed off the Vietnamese coast on Saturday after losing contact with traffic controllers.

So far, identification of the crash site has not been confirmed, but photos purporting to show debris scattered in the sea water where the flight lost contact have just surfaced on social media.

The airline released a seventh media statement on its official website this morning at 9:30 a.m. saying that it had deployed a team of caregivers to provide emotional support for the families and that it was “doing its utmost to provide support to the affected family members” including giving financial aid.

[Image via New.cn]



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