AN international media outlet’s claim that the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 will resume next year is not true, said Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai.

He said the ministry had not finalised negotiations with US-based seabed exploration outfit Ocean Infinity, and would look into the details of experts’ views.

“We need accurate data to confirm whether the search for MH370 needs to be continued or not.

“If we are convinced, with credible evidence, only then will we continue the search mission,” he told reporters at an event where RM1.6 million from the Flagbearer Education Association fund was handed out to 40 children of 23 cabin crew members of MH370, as well as MH17, in Kuala Lumpur today.

The fund is an initiative by four private companies, namely Eu Yan Sang, Genting Malaysia Berhad, Hap Seng Plantations Holdings Berhad and Kuala Lumpur Kepong Berhad.

MH370 disappeared while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014. It had 239 passengers and crew members on board.

Australia, China and Malaysia, which jointly coordinated and funded a search operation for the missing aircraft, had, in January, suspended the search when traces of the Boeing 777 could not be found in the 120,000 sq km search area in the southern Indian Ocean.

MH17, a Boeing 777-200 aircraft, was shot down in troubled eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2015, as it was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur with 298 passengers and crew members on board. – Bernama, November 1, 2017.