No new clues in MH370 report

8 March 2015 Last updated at 08:58

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Many family members continue to believe their loved ones are still alive, as Jennifer Pak reports

An interim report into Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, published on the first anniversary of its disappearance, has given no new clues as to what happened to the plane.

The report revealed that an underwater locator beacon battery had expired a year earlier, although it is unclear whether this impacted the search.

The airliner was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it vanished.

Malaysia and Australia say they remain committed to finding the missing plane.

Relatives of the 239 passengers and crew held remembrance ceremonies on Sunday.

The Malaysian government report contains masses of technical information about the missing aircraft, its maintenance record, the background of the crew, and the various air traffic control and military radar tracking records of the plane, says the BBC's Jonathan Head.

It notes the battery on the beacon of the flight data recorder had expired, which may suggest searchers had less chance of locating the aircraft, although the battery on the locator beacon of the cockpit voice recorder was working.

But the report offers no significant new information which might explain where the plane went, or what happened to it, adds our correspondent.

Search teams are looking for the plane in a 60,000 sq km zone in the southern Indian Ocean.

Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the search would move to a different area if the current operation was unsuccessful, as long as there were reasonable leads.

Analysis: Jonathan Head, BBC News, Kuala Lumpur

Of all the many theories about what happened to MH370, the idea that it might have been diverted to a remote airfield and its passengers taken off, seems the least plausible. What motive could the mysterious hijacker have had? No demands have been made.

But it is a theory that Wen Wan Cheng is clinging to with defiant certainty. And who can blame him? The 64 year-old property developer from Shandong had his son, Wen Yong Sheng, on board the ill-fated flight. Until he sees some evidence of what happened to the plane, he believes his son must still be alive.

The Malaysian authorities still insist the best theory is that the plane crashed into a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean, after being diverted and flying south for several hours. That is where they are still looking, in 60,000 sq km (23,166 sq m) of sea.

But they lost the trust of the families early on due to their clumsy and confused response to the disappearance. The inexplicable absence of any wreckage, one year on, allows relatives to hold on to the near-impossible hope that some of the 239 passengers and crew may have survived.

One woman's year with no news

"We owe it to the families of the dead, we owe it to the travelling public to do whatever we reasonably can to resolve of this mystery," Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told reporters on Sunday.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said the search team had followed the "little evidence that exists" but remained "hopeful" that the plane would be found.

"No words can describe the pain the families of those on board are going through. The lack of answers and definitive proof - such as aircraft wreckage - has made this more difficult to bear," he added.

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Two experienced pilots explain what they think may have happened to flight MH370

Earlier on Sunday, the families of MH370 crew members held a remembrance ceremony at the house of missing in-flight supervisor Patrick Gomez.

"We're always thinking exactly what happened on that day itself, you know the conversations that we were having, the tears, the hugs that we were giving each other," said his wife, Jacquita Gonzales.

The BBC's Jennifer Pak in Kuala Lumpur said that the event has not been billed as a commemoration ceremony because many family members still believe that their loved ones are alive.

Some families of those on board the plane have accused the Malaysian authorities of hiding some information, but the transport minister urged them not to believe the conspiracy theories.

Earlier this year, the Malaysian government declared flight MH370 to have been lost with all on board, in a move it said was necessary to start processing compensation claims for the families.

The search for Flight MH370

Search vessels are focused on a 60,000 sq km (23,166 sq m) priority zone; more than 40% of the area has been scoured to date

Cost of A$120m (£61m; US$93m) has been jointly funded by Australia and Malaysia

Could it have been suicide?

What we know

How the search is conducted

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