AP file photo
A Beijing court has ordered Malaysia Airlines to pay compensation to the families of eight passengers from flight MH370, more than a decade after the plane vanished. The Chaoyang District People’s Court said 47 other lawsuits were withdrawn after the families reached out-of-court settlements with Malaysia Airlines and its international arm.The court ruled on Friday that each family would receive over 2.9 million yuan ($410,000) to cover funeral expenses, emotional distress, and other losses.Two-thirds of the passengers on flight MH370 were Chinese, while the remainder included Malaysians, Indonesians, Australians, as well as Indian, American, Dutch, and French nationals.Of the 78 cases originally filed by families after the crash, 23 remain pending. According to the Beijing court, the families involved “have either not yet applied for a declaration of death or have not yet completed the declaration process,” as cited by Reuters.The eight passengers whose families were awarded compensation have been legally declared deceased.The Boeing 777 vanished on March 8, 2014, while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Satellite data later indicated that the plane likely crashed in the southern Indian Ocean, off the western coast of Australia, though two major search efforts failed to yield significant findings. The last transmission came about 40 minutes after takeoff, when Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah signed off with, “Good night, Malaysian three seven zero,” as the flight entered Vietnamese airspace. Shortly after, the plane’s transponder was turned off, making it difficult to track.Military radar showed the aircraft deviating from its flight path, flying back over northern Malaysia and Penang Island, before heading into the Andaman Sea toward the southern tip of Sumatra. It then turned south, after which all contact was lost, as reported by Reuters.Malaysia, Australia, and China conducted an underwater search across a 120,000 sq km (46,332 sq miles) area in the southern Indian Ocean, guided by data from automatic connections between the plane and an Inmarsat satellite.The operation, which cost around A$200 million ($131.5 million), was called off in January 2017 after two years, with no trace of the aircraft found. Over 30 pieces of suspected debris have been recovered along the African coast and on islands in the Indian Ocean, but only three wing fragments have been conclusively confirmed as parts of MH370.A fresh search for the missing aircraft is scheduled to begin on December 30, 2025.
