Malaysian Airlines said the crashed Boeing B777-200 aircraft bearing registration no. 9M-MRD had a clean maintenance record.
The 17 year old aircraft was manufactured in July 1997, and had undergone its last maintenance check on 11 July 2014. The next check was due on 27 Aug 2014.
The aircraft had flown for 75322 hours with a total of 11434 cycles and was powered by two Rolls-Royce Trent-800 engines.
Malaysia Airlines confirmed that the aircraft did not make a distress call and all its communication systems were functioning normally.
Malaysian Airlines has diverted all its European flights through alternative routes avoiding the usual route.
As opposed to the earlier statement, MA confirmed that the flight was carrying a total number of 298 people – comprising 283 passengers including three infants of various nationalities and 15 crew of Malaysian nationality.
