MH370
Zhang Yongli, whose daughter Zhang Qi was onboard Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 which disappeared on March 8, 2014 shows a badge which he received from an NGO group supporting the family members of missing passengers, during an interview with Reuters in Beijing July 22, 2014. Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon

An interim report on the investigation into the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 will be released by the country’s Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) on March 7, Deputy Transport Minister Datuk Aziz Kaprawi said Wednesday. The report, which will be available on the DCA website, will be published a day before the one-year anniversary of the jet’s disappearance.

Aziz said the report will give details about the technical investigation, according to Reuters, adding that it is being released to follow the International Civil Aviation Organization’s requirement that an interim report of a probe into an accident needs to be submitted within a year of the event. The report will be announced by Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai. The aircraft went missing on March 8 with 239 people on board during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and is believed to have crashed in a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean.

"‎I cannot reveal the details of the interim report but it will be on the investigation that has been carried out so far in search of the missing plane, Aziz said, according to local reports."We have not concluded on the status of the plane, as the search is still on-going."

The findings of an international investigation team, consisting of seven agencies, which was formed in April 2014, will also be included in the report, according to Reuters.

The agencies include the U.S. National Transport Safety Board, Britain's Air Accidents Investigation Branch, China's Aircraft Accident Investigation Department, French Land Transport Accident Investigation Bureau, Australian Transport Safety Bureau, aircraft manufacturing company Boeing and British satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat.

The search for the missing Boeing 777, which has continued for 10 months now and has become the most expensive in aviation history, currently involves four vessels. An area of about 7,000 square miles of the sea floor has been scoured so far, Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre said in a search update on Wednesday.

The area searched till now is around 30 percent of the priority search zone and authorities believe that the operation may be largely completed by May 2015.

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