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Search for missing MH370 plane suspended

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The transport ministers of Australia, China and Malaysia Friday decided to suspend an ongoing search in the Indian ocean for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane MH370, which disappeared in 2014 with 239 people aboard.

The search will stay suspended until there is new information regarding the location of the remains of the aircraft, said Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai.

In addition to Liow, Australian Transport Minister Darren Chester and his Chinese counterpart Yang Chuantang were also present at the meeting held in Putrajaya in Malaysia.

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Search operations have currently covered around 110,000 of the 120,000 square kilometers in the southern part of the Indian Ocean, about 1,000 km from Australia where the plane is believed to have crashed.

The search was expected to be completed in July, but the arrival of the Australian winter has forced the operation to be postponed to October or December.

The Beijingbound MH370 disappeared 40 minutes after taking off from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014 with 227 passengers the majority of them Chinese and 12 crew members.

According to the official investigation, someone turned off the communication systems device before reversing the plane route and finally crashing in a remote uninhabited region south of the Indian Ocean.

Five pieces of debris were recovered from beaches in Mozambique, South Africa, Mauritius and the French islands Reunion and Rodrigues.

Experts confirmed the pieces of debris found were part of the missing plane and possibly dragged to those shores by sea currents to the African continent.

Experts are also currently examining eight other pieces found in the eastern coast of Africa.