MH370 families say they 'will never give up searching'

Relatives of the passengers who went missing when Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared last year have demanded answers over what happened to the doomed plane.

Family members of the missing gathered outside the Malaysian Embassy in Beijing today, on the one year anniversary of the plane's disappearance, waving banners saying "Never give up. Search on" and "MH370. Tell us truth."

An interim report into the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 says an underwater locator beacon battery had expired a year before the plane disappeared.

The Malaysian investigation team looking at the disappearance of flight MH370 have issued an interim statement.

The team are obliged to issue such statements on the anniversary of the disappearance, regardless of any new information.

Dato Kok Soo Chon, chief MH370 investigator, has detailed the information, most of which was already known, that the team have been examining.

He warned: "The investigation team emphasis that the factual information that has been gathered to date, is of an interim nature and new information which may become available may alter this information before the publication of the final report."

The full report is available here.

A report into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is expected to be released later, coinciding with the one-year anniversary of the greatest mystery in the history of aviation.

As families of those on the Boeing 777, which had been travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, marked the anniversary, the Malaysian prime minister said he is hopeful the plane will be found.

Najib Razak said: "The lack of answers and definitive proof - such as aircraft wreckage - has made this more difficult to bear.

"Together with our international partners, we have followed the little evidence that exists. Malaysia remains committed to the search, and hopeful that MH370 will be found."

Families of the 239 people on board Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 are marking the first anniversary of the plane's disappearance with a vow to never give up on the search for answers to the world's biggest aviation mystery.

Voice 370, which includes relatives of the passengers and crew aboard flight MH370, is hosting a "Day of Remembrance" at a mall in Kuala Lumpur.

The Malaysian government is poised to release an interim investigation report on the matter, a requirement under international civil aviation regulations.

Candlelit vigils have been held in Kuala Lumpur ahead of the one year anniversary of the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.

Despite extensive search efforts no trace of the aircraft, thought to be in the southern Indian Ocean, has been found since it went missing on March 8, 2014.

Martha Fairlie reports on the continuing search for the missing plane and its 239 passengers and crew:

British pilots are calling for technical improvements so the site and possible cause of a crash can be identified more quickly, a year after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

Despite extensive searches, no trace of the aircraft, thought to be in the southern Indian Ocean, has been found. Pilots' organisation Balpa wants more technical aircraft data to be transmitted to a "virtual black box" when a flight experiences problems.

Balpa says aircraft should be modified to send a burst of vital technical data from the cockpit as soon as aircraft behaves outside normal flight patterns. This information would be saved virtually and used to locate the aircraft and provide an early indication of what has taken place, pending a full investigation using the black box cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder once retrieved from the aircraft.

If the massive undersea search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 turns up nothing by the end of May, the three countries leading the effort will return to the drawing board, Malaysia's transport minister said.

On the eve of the anniversary of the plane's disappearance during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, Liow Tiong Lai said he remained "cautiously optimistic" the Boeing 777 should be in the area of the southern Indian Ocean where the search has been ongoing.

"By the end of May, if we still can't find the plane, then we will have to go back to the drawing board," he said.