The sister of New Zealand MH370 victim Paul Weeks is refusing to give up hope the plane will be found.
Paul Weeks with his wife, Danica, on their wedding day, and his sister Sara Weeks, inset. Photo: Supplied
The search for the Malaysia Airlines plane has been suspended, with Australian, Malaysian and Chinese authorities unable to locate it in the Indian Ocean.
The passenger plane disappeared in March 2014 with 239 passengers and crew on board, while travelling between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing.
Sara Weeks said she and the families of other victims hoped a private search could be funded.
"What I believe is that [the authorities] have been searching in the wrong area because the information they've been given during the past nearly three years is mostly incorrect," she said.
"These are our family members and we'd like to know what happened to them - it's a sad thing to know people don't want to search for your family anymore."
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 went missing in March 2014 with 239 people on board. Photo: 123RF
Ms Weeks and other victims' relatives share a Facebook group and regularly keep in contact, she said.
In a joint statement, the Australian, Malaysian and Chinese governments said the decision to abandon the search, after unsuccessfully searching 120,000 square km of ocean floor, was not taken lightly.
Australia last month dismissed an investigator's recommendation to shift the search further north, saying no new evidence had emerged to support that.
"We knew this was coming as the authorities have said all along that they were going to stop looking," Ms Weeks said.
"This now means the families continues to lobby to find someone who is prepared to put up the money to continue the search until we can find the plane - it's also important because if it can happen to this plane it can happen again."
It was an expensive process, she said.
"We don't have that kind of money, but someone out there does."
The only confirmed traces of the plane have been three pieces of debris found washed up on the island country Mauritius, the French island Reunion and an island off the coast of Tanzania.
As many as 30 other pieces of wreckage found there, and at beaches in Mozambique, Tanzania and South Africa, are thought to have come from the plane.