Alalam-Asia

Malaysia said on Thursday it would pay a reward to any private company that found the fuselage of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, days after a fruitless, three-year hunt was suspended; Reuters reported.

Australia, Malaysia and China ended the search for the aircraft on Tuesday, leaving one of the world's greatest aviation mysteries unanswered.

The Boeing 777 jet disappeared in March 2014, en route to Beijing from the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, with 239 people on board.

Malaysian Deputy Transport Minister Abdul Aziz Kaprawi said the government was open to credible private companies searching for it, and would reward any that found its fuselage.

"All costs must be borne by them. We will only reward them if they are successful," Abdul Aziz told Reuters.

He said the size of the reward had not been decided. Any company intending to search should contact the government, and a decision would then be made on the reward, he said.

The search of a 120,000 sq km (46,000 sq mile) area of the Indian Ocean cost about A$200 million ($150 million).

But the three countries involved were reluctant to keep looking without new evidence about the plane's final resting place.

Flight MH370 lost contact over the Gulf of Thailand in the early hours of March 8, 2014.

Subsequent analysis of radar and satellite contacts suggested someone on board may have deliberately switched off the plane's transponder before diverting it thousands of kilometres out over the Indian Ocean.

Since the crash, there have been competing theories over whether the plane was hijacked and whether it was under the control of anyone when it finally ran out of fuel.

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