VOA标准英语2014--Families Wait for Word on Vanished Malaysia Flight

 

Families Wait for Word on Vanished Malaysia Flight 

BEIJING — A Malaysia Airlines plane with more than 200 people on board lost contact with air traffic controllers shortly after it took off from Kuala Lumpur late Friday.  Although a search and rescue mission is underway little is still known about the fate of the flight, which presumably crashed. Family members say they are getting little information about what happened and getting increasingly frustrated¹.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people, including 227 passengers and 12 crew members. Most of the passengers were Chinese nationals.

Two infants were also on board. The airline says that in addition to the 152 Chinese nationals board there were also 38 Malaysians, 12 Indonesians, seven Australians, three French and four Americans, one of whom was an infant.

The flight was originally supposed to arrive in Beijing at 6:30 in the morning local time Saturday.  Authorities brought many of the family members and loved ones of those on board to a hotel in Beijing where they waited anxiously for news. The situation at the hotel was chaotic² with scores of reporters waiting for updates from the airline and family members growing increasingly frustrated.

One man, whose father-in-law was on board says the airline has told them nothing and when a reporter asks how he feels about the support the airline is giving them, he says: what do you think? The man says that in a room at the hotel where they are waiting, there are elderly parents and women crying.

The long time partner of one of the American passengers on board tells VOA that she is getting regular updates from the airline and has not given up hope yet.

"As far as they [the airline] are concerned the flight went missing. It took off at 12:30 and it went missing two hours into the flight," she said.

On board the plane, there were also passengers from New Zealand, Ukraine, Canada, Russia, Italy, Taiwan, The Netherlands and Austria.

A spokesman for Malaysia Airlines says there is much speculation³ as to the fate of the plane, but nothing so far has been confirmed.

"We are working with authorities who have actively⁵ activated⁶ the search and rescue team to locate the aircraft. Our team is currently calling the next of kin⁴ of passengers and crew," he said.

Vietnamese authorities say the last detected signal from the missing flight was from an area about 240 kilometers off the southwestern coast of Vietnam near Tho Chu island.

The head of Malaysia Airlines, Ahmed Jauhari Yahya, said the flight's Malaysian pilot, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, joined the airline in 1981 and has flown more than 18,000 hours.

The first officer, Fariq Hamid, joined the airline in 2007 and has more than 2,000 flying hours.

Among its fleet of 100 planes, Malaysia Airlines operates 15 Boeing 777-200 jets.

 

The aircraft has a strong safety record. Since it was commercialized in 1995, there has been only one fatal crash - in July 2013, when an Asiana Airlines 777 crash-landed in San Francisco killing⁷ three passengers, all Chinese teenage girls.

1 frustrated   

adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧

参考例句：

• It's very easy to get frustrated in this job. 这个工作很容易令人懊恼。
• The bad weather frustrated all our hopes of going out. 恶劣的天气破坏了我们出行的愿望。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 chaotic   

adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的

参考例句：

• Things have been getting chaotic in the office recently.最近办公室的情况越来越乱了。
• The traffic in the city was chaotic.这城市的交通糟透了。

3 speculation   

n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机

参考例句：

• Her mind is occupied with speculation.她的头脑忙于思考。
• There is widespread speculation that he is going to resign.人们普遍推测他要辞职。

4 kin   

n.家族，亲属，血缘关系；adj.亲属关系的，同类的

参考例句：

• He comes of good kin.他出身好。
• She has gone to live with her husband's kin.她住到丈夫的亲戚家里去了。

5 actively   

adv.积极地，勤奋地

参考例句：

• During this period all the students were actively participating.在这节课中所有的学生都积极参加。
• We are actively intervening to settle a quarrel.我们正在积极调解争执。

6 activated   

adj. 激活的 动词activate的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The canister is filled with activated charcoal.蒸气回收罐中充满了活性炭。

7 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。