Flight MH370 Update: Ministerial Tripartite Meeting Set For This Month As Search Operation Nears End

The ministerial tripartite meeting on the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 will be held on July 19, Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said Friday. The search for the missing Boeing 777-200 is expected to conclude this month.

Liow reportedly said that the meeting would deliberate on the next course of action regarding the search for the aircraft, which went off radar on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board while on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

"All three nations (Malaysia, China and Australia) are committed to look for MH370 in the 120,000 square kilometers (46,332 square miles) search grid and so far we have combed through 107,000 square kilometers (41,312 square miles)," Liow told New Straits Times Online.

Liow also said that bad weather conditions had hampered the search for the plane in the remote part of the southern Indian Ocean, but the operation would resume once the situation improves.

The multimillion-dollar search for Flight MH370 has been underway for more than two years with no concrete clues as to the whereabouts of the jet.

Over the last few months, several debris pieces have been found near the South African region, of which authorities said only five may have come from the missing jet.

Martin Dolan, the chief of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), which is leading the search, said if the current operation failed governments should consider extending it to new areas.

“Of course (I’d like to see it continue). This has been two years of our lives focused on this task, so of course you want to see it to completion — of course we want to find that aircraft,” Dolan told the Australian on his last day as the chief of ATSB.