Latest search for missing MH370 flight formally ends

A privately funded search for the missing Malaysia Airline flight MH370 has drawn to a close.

US-based company Ocean Infinity had been using a deep-sea vessel to conduct a 90-day survey of a vast area of the southern Indian Ocean.

However, the search did not yield any new evidence, and Malaysia’s government says it has no plans to begin new searches.

Malaysia signed a “no cure, no fee” deal with Ocean Infinity in January to resume the hunt for the plane, a year after the official search in the southern Indian Ocean by Australia, Malaysia and China was called off.

The plane disappeared on 8 March 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.

There are still fierce debates over how the flight ended and the families of those on board say they want search efforts to continue.

"People might think: 'Why are these people still harping on about this, it's been four years'. It's important for people to remember that MH370 is not history," Grace Nathan, whose mother was on MH370, told the Guardian.

The plane was carry 153 people from China and 38 Malaysians. Other passengers came from Iran, the US, Canada, Indonesia, Australia, India, France, New Zealand, Ukraine, Russia, Taiwan and the Netherlands. The 12 crew were all Malaysian.

The hunt for the missing plane formed one of the largest surface and underwater searches in aviation history, covering more than 120,000 sq km (46,300 miles) of the Indian Ocean.

Pieces of debris have been found as far away as Madagascar, but not the main body of the plane.

The official search, involving teams from Australia, Malaysia and China, ended in January last year.