The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which mysteriously vanished more than four years ago, has ended in failure.
Ocean Infinity, a private American exploration company based in Houston, said Tuesday that it had covered 112,000 square kilometers of the ocean floor but ultimately found nothing.
The aircraft disappeared in 2014 carrying 239 people from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in one of the world's biggest aviation mysteries.
The governments of Australia, Malaysia and China suspended the official search after scrutinizing about 119,139 square kilometers of the Indian Ocean floor at a cost of more than $150 million. Officials then concluded that the probable crash site was farther north.
After pressure from the families of the victims, the former Malaysian government struck a deal with Ocean Infinity to restart the search in January on the condition it would be paid only if the Boeing 777 or its flight data recorders, or black boxes, were found.
The firm stood to make up to $70 million if successful but did not find any sign of the airliner, despite scouring the seabed with some of the world's most high-tech search equipment.
Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke has said a full report into the plane's disappearance will be published in the future, but a date has not been given.
Australia, Malaysia and China have agreed that an official search will resume only if credible evidence about the plane's location emerges.
