Families seek aid to search for plane

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The families of those on board missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 began an effort Saturday to raise at least $15 million to fund a private search as they marked the third anniversary of the plane’s disappearance.

Malaysia, Australia and China suspended a nearly three-year search in the southern Indian Ocean on Jan. 17 after it failed to find any trace of the plane. The jet disappeared March 8, 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.

Jacquita Gomes, whose husband was a flight attendant on the plane, said families have no choice but to take matters into their own hands by raising the money.

“What happened to MH370 is a mystery, but it should not go down in the history books as a mystery. Everybody wants answers,” Gomes said at a remembrance event at a shopping mall near Kuala Lumpur.

Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said in a speech at the event that a final report with information and analysis on what happened to the plane based on available data and evidence would be released this year. He didn’t say when.

Liow said authorities would step up efforts to comb for plane debris along the African coast. So far, he said, 27 pieces of debris have been found, including two new pieces found off Africa about two weeks ago. He said three pieces of debris have been confirmed to be from Flight 370, and that five more are “almost certain” to be from the plane.

Gomes said families hope to raise at least $15 million to pursue the search in a new area recommended by experts.