Shit. I hope the situation ends well.

The flight in question: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/MAS370/history/20140307/1...

Some sleuthing about the flight and its potential whereabouts at time loss of contact: http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/re...

Might be SOP, as in they were waiting for confirmation from Chinese side that plane never entered their airspace before releasing anything.

Anyone knows how often carriers lose contact with their planes?

lost contact at 2:40AM, not 12:40AM. Still a long time, but the title exaggerates.

Discussions in /r/aviation suggest that this is normal procedure. As the aircraft had 7 hours of fuel onboard, they waited until then before announcing it.