Malaysian and Australian officials discussed cost-sharing this week in the Australian capital, but Australian Transport Minister Warren Truss today declined to say whether the country was even considering an even split of the bill for a search that will take months, if not years, and cost tens of millions of dollars at a minimum.
"I don't want to give any indication as to where it's likely to end up," Truss told The Associated Press. "We are talking about this with the Malaysians and other countries who have got a key interest."
And a legal expert said Australia's obligations are murky because of the unprecedented nature of the plane's disappearance.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 veered off course during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 and is believed to have crashed into the Indian Ocean far off the west Australian coast.
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The search area has changed several times, but no sign of the aircraft, or the 239 people aboard, has been found.
Countries involved in the search, including Malaysia, Australia, United States, China, Japan, Britain, South Korea and New Zealand, have carried their own costs to date.
But Malaysian government lawmaker Jailani Johari, chairman of Malaysia's Liaison, Communication and Media Committee, told reporters in Kuala Lumpur this week that future costs "will be shared 50-50" between Malaysia and Australia.
The job is much more difficult than another complex and challenging search it is often compared to: the hunt for Air France Flight 447. Though debris from that aircraft was found within days, it took two years to recover the black boxes from the plane, which crashed off the coast of Brazil in 2009, killing 228 people.