As 40 ships and 34 planes from nine different countries continue the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a Texas family is praying for 50-year-old Philip Wood, one of three Americans among the 239 people on board. Wood, a technical storage exec with IBM, had been transferred from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, reports WFAA, and had returned to Texas to visit family before relocating. The AP reports his Saturday flight was supposed to be his final one to China's capital, where he had planned to wrap up loose ends before moving. Wood is divorced with two sons, one a student at Texas A&M University and the other an alumnus of that school.
"Do you want to know how it feels to lose a son at the age of 50?" his mother says. "It's devastating. But, I know in my heart that Philip's with God and I plan to be there with him because I have a deep faith in my God." The two other Americans listed on the flight manifest are Nicole Meng, 4, and Yan Zhang, 2, and it's not clear whether they may have been traveling with American parents with dual citizenship, the New York Times notes. The Times, meanwhile, looks at some of the other passengers aboard the flight: They hailed from at least 13 countries and included a Chinese family of five who took a vacation to get away from Beijing's bad air; a 20-member group of Chinese calligraphers and painters who had been recognized at a Kuala Lumpur arts center; and a Canadian couple on their way back to their home in Beijing—and two young sons—after a romantic holiday in Vietnam. (More Malaysia Airlines stories.)