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Flight MH370,
carrying 239 people, went missing on its way from Kuala Lumpur
to Beijing, nearly three years ago, on March 8, 2014.
Australia, Malaysia, and China jointly called off a two-year
underwater search for the aircraft in January.
Grace Nathan, a Malaysian lawyer whose mother, Anne Daisy, was
on the plane, said the families hope to raise $15 million to
fund an initial search north of the previous search area.
"We won't start fundraising until we're sure that the
governments are not going to resume the search and until the
current data has been fully reviewed and analyzed," she said at
the campaign launch and MH370 memorial event held at a mall in
Kuala Lumpur.
The three governments have said they will resume the search if
any credible evidence on the whereabouts of the plane emerges.
International experts last year assisted Voice 370, a support
group for MH370 next-of-kin, in mounting their own search along
the East African coast where debris had been discovered.
"They pinpointed to us accurately where the debris would have
made landfall. They've been very helpful both on a personal
level and to the investigation," Grace said.
The memorial event, the first held since the search was
suspended, featured musical and dance performances, while family
members and friends of those aboard made impassioned pleas for
the search to continue.
Jiang Hui, whose mother was on the plane, recounted his
experience discovering a piece of potential MH370 debris in
Madagascar last year.
"I thought it was very miraculous and fortunate when I found the
piece of debris that day, but I thought it was useless because
this sort of searching activity should have been done by the
government," said Jiang, who traveled from China to attend the
memorial.
"It should not be us, the family members, who should have been
subjected to this pain, to go and face this cruel reality."
Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai, who attended the
event, said authorities had analyzed 27 pieces of potential
MH370 debris along the East African coastline, including two new
pieces found in South Africa two weeks ago.
The government has also signed several agreements with countries
along the East African coastline to coordinate searches for
debris, Liow said.
(Reporting by Rozanna Latiff; Editing by Richard Pullin)
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