Malaysia scotches MH370 reward

The Malaysian government has backtracked on its offer of a reward to private search teams looking for MH370.

Liow Tiong Lai, left, and Darren Chester in Perth.

The Malaysian government ­yesterday backtracked on its offer of a reward of hundreds of ­thousands of dollars to private search teams seeking to solve the mystery of MH370, as the lead Australian agency revealed it wanted to keep looking for the doomed flight.

MH370 and its 239 passengers went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 nearly three years ago, and ­yesterday the last vessel searching a 120,000sq km ocean grid ­returned to Perth.

Last week the Malaysian ­government, the People’s Republic of China and the Australian government brought the $200 million underwater search to an end, leaving unsolved the world’s largest aviation mystery.

Yesterday Malaysia’s Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai ­contradicted his deputy’s promise of a reward for private searchers. Mr Liow was in Perth to thank the crew of the search vessel Fugro Equator, which returned overnight from its final few days in the search area 2600km off Western Australia’s coast.

On a visit to Henderson industrial maritime base with Australia’s Transport Minister Darren Chester, Mr Liow said Malaysia would not consider offering a reward to credible private companies searching for the aeroplane.

Last week, Malaysia’s Deputy Transport Minister Abdul Aziz Kaprawi was reported as saying that the government was open to offering “millions” of Malaysian ringgit as a reward (one million ringgit is nearly $300,000 ­dollars).

“There will be cash rewards in the millions (of ringgit) for those who are able to find substantial information or evidence like the fuselage,” he said.

But Mr Liow told reporters: “It was the deputy minister’s personal view, not the government’s, we are not having any such decision.”

Instead, Mr Liow said Malaysia’s aviation authority would continue to investigate data and plane debris, “and from then on, we hope we can get more credible evidence for the undersea search.”

He said out of 25 pieces of ­debris, three pieces had been ­confirmed as being from MH370, another five were considered likely, while other pieces are still being evaluated. “We’ll continue to work on the debris and work with all the countries concerned,” Mr Liow said.

Australia’s lead agency, the Australian Transport Safety ­Bureau, was asked yesterday why a 25,000sq km area identified last month by aviation experts as a likely area for the missing Boeing 777 was not being searched. The area lies to the north of the official search zone in the southern ­Indian Ocean.

ATSB chief commissioner Greg Hood said: “It’s highly likely the area now defined by the experts contains the aircraft but that’s not absolutely for certain.”

Asked why the ATSB wouldn’t expand the search area further north, he said “That’s a question for the governments.”

Mr Hood later said ATSB would have liked to continue searching to bring closure to the families.

“Everybody wants to do the right thing — everybody’s got hopes,” Mr Hood said. “Having met a number of family members personally, they continue to have protracted and prolonged grief. I’m profoundly sorry for these people.”

Mr Hood was asked whether it was time to revisit theories that one of MH370’s pilots had deliberately sabotaged the plane, piloting it to the end.

He said analysis of the wing flap suggested a rapid rate of ­descent “which is suggestive of the aircraft not being in control at the end of the flight.”

Mr Liow said his government needed “more empirical evidence before we move to the next search area”, adding: “We are thinking that there’ll be more debris washing up in a short time to come.”