Missing flight MH370: Malaysia Airlines sued by the family of Australian victim Paul Weeks

The family of an Australian man who disappeared on the lost MH370 flight two years ago are suing Malaysian Airlines for damages. The wife and family of Paul Weeks have lodged five separate writs with the West Australian supreme court on behalf of themselves and the couple's children, covering mental harm, lost earnings and costs incurred by the funeral and aftermath, at a 6% rate interest on damages per year.

Weeks' wife Danica, sister Sara, brother Peter and mother Prudence Tomblin tabled their claims on 4 March, four days before the second anniversary of the crash, when the statute of limitations would have been applied. A claim was also placed on behalf of the couple's two children – five-year-old Lincoln and two-year-old Jack.

The Supreme Court of Western Australia declared Weeks dead in late January.

Flight MH370 vanished shortly after take-off from Kuala Lumpur on 8 March 2014. It was bound for Beijing carrying 239 people onboard. But the plane vanished from air traffic control systems and very little wreckage has yet been found.

Wreckage discoveries

The Boeing 777 is thought to have gone down somewhere in the Indian Ocean. A wing fragment confirmed to be from the aircraft washed ashore on Reunion Island in the middle of last year, while a second piece also believed to have been from the plane recently washed up in Mozambique.

A third piece of an aircraft, found last December in Mozambique by a holidaying South African teenager, is still awaiting tests. This particular piece has a five-digit number on it, which gives it a high possibility of coming from a Boeing 777.

The teenager told South Africa's East Coast Radio about the find: "We picked it up and I turned it around and it had like a curve to it. You could see where it'd been pop-riveted almost, like there's holes on the side."

His family contacted Australian authorities after they read about the other find in Mozambique. The South African Civil Aviation Authority is now arranging for the wreckage to be shipped down under.