Malaysia to pay firm $70m if it finds MH370 plane in 90 days

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia kicked off a new search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 on Monday, its civil aviation department said.

The aircraft disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014 with 239 people, mostly Chinese, on board, in one of the world's greatest aviation mysteries.

This month, the southeast Asian nation agreed to pay US firm Ocean Infinity up to $70 million if it finds the plane within 90 days. The search vessel, the Seabed Constructor, set off from Durban, South Africa, on Jan. 3.

Reuters reported earlier on Tuesday that the Seabed Constructor had reached the remote spot in the Indian Ocean where Australian scientists believe the plane went down.

Australia, Malaysia and China called off their two-year search for the plane a year ago after finding nothing in a 120,000-sq-km underwater search zone.