Malaysia Airlines ordered to pay £307,000 each to families of eight MH370 passengers | World News

Malaysia Airlines has been ordered by a Beijing court to pay more than £300,000 to the families of eight passengers on missing flight MH370.

The compensation – 2.9m yuan (£307,571) for each family – is for the death of loved ones, funeral expenses and damages for emotional distress, the court said.

Passengers on board have never been found, but they have been declared legally dead.

MH370 mysteriously vanished on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in 2014, leading to a series of unsuccessful searches.

Most of the passengers were Chinese, with families in China continuing to seek answers.

The court added that a further 23 cases remain pending, with agreements reached in 47 other cases and lawsuits withdrawn.

Last week, the Malaysian government said a search for the plane would resume on 30 December.

‘Good night, Malaysian three seven zero’

Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah signed off the plane’s last transmission with “good night, Malaysian three seven zero” around 40 minutes into take off, as it flew into Vietnamese airspace.

But the plane’s transponder ceased to operate shortly after as air traffic controllers lost contact.

Radar showed it took a left turn across the Peninsular Malaysia, with investigators then believing it crashed into the Indian Ocean west of Australia.

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Small pieces of debris from the jet, which was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew when it vanished, have since washed up.

In 2020, former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott claimed that from “very, very early on” the “very top levels” of the Malaysian government believed Mr Shah crashed the plane on purpose.

But investigators are unable to determine what happened without finding the plane.