MH370: Many victims' families do not want to receive initial compensation - Liow

Many families of the victims of the Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 that went missing since last March, still do not want to receive the initial compensation of US$50,000 (RM165,000) provided to their next-of-kin by the airline.

Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said this was because the family members were hoping that the MH370 passengers were safe and would come back to them.

"We have extended the initial compensation of US$50,000 to the family members but unfortunately many still do not want to receive it because they still consider their family members are still alive as we have yet to find any aircraft or bodies from the MH370 tragedy," he said.

He was replying to a question from Senator Datuk Raja Roopiah Raja Abdullah on the status of the compensation given to the MH370 victims' family members at the Dewan Negara here Thursday.

Flight MH370, with 227 passengers and 12 crew, was enroute to Beijing when it disappeared about one hour after departing from the KL International Airport last March 8.

MAS offered the initial compensation as part of the full compensation payment to every victim's family.

Liow reiterated the government's stand that the search for the aircraft continued to be a priority and the Malaysian government was committed in the search efforts jointly conducted with Australia and China.

"Until now the search operation for flight MH370 has entered the deep sea operation phase headed by the Australian Transportation Safety Bureau.

The operation, which began last October, will be continued in the next 12 months.

So far the deep sea search operation, which involves exploring the mapped ocean bed area, covers over 9,600 sq kms," he said.

He said if flight MH370 was found in the ocean bed, the next phase would be to go ahead with the recovery phase to recover the aircraft from the ocean bed.