KUALA LUMPUR, June 8 — Families of passengers aboard the ill-fated Flight MH370 will officially launch today a campaign to raise US$5 million (RM16.1 million) via crowdfunding to reward private investigators, whistleblowers or any firm that could provide the information that leads to the recovery of the missing jetliner.

In a statement here, project leader Ethan Hunt said the campaign will kick off on popular crowd-funding site Indiegogo at 8am Eastern Standard Time (EST) today, or 8pm local time, in conjunction with the three-month anniversary of MH370's disappearance.

“This mystery is unprecedented in the history of aviation, and we need to work as a collective community with one goal of finding the truth, the plane and the passengers," he said in a statement emailed to the media here.

“Utilising the immense potential of the crowd we believe we can achieve our primary goal of recovering the flight where others methods have failed in the past.

“We are convinced that somewhere, someone knows something, and we hope this reward will entice him or her to come forward," he added.

The initiative involves families from the US, Australia, New Zealand, France and India, and does not include the families of passengers from China or the Malaysian flight crew, who collectively made up the bulk of the 239 people aboard the commercial flight.

Ghislain Wattrelos, whose two children Hadrian and Amber, and wife Laurence, were in the plane said he believes the mysterious disappearance of the wide-body Boeing 777 jetliner could not have been an accident.

“How could this happen? In this age of constant connection and pervasive surveillance, a giant plane has been allowed to just disappear.

“My family deserves to be found," he said in the statement.

Sarah Bajc, whose partner Philip Wood was among those aboard the missing plane, said without a new search tactic, "the truth and the plane will never be found".

“Governments and agencies have given it their best shot but have failed to turn up a single shred of evidence, either because of a faulty approach or due to intentional misdirection by one or more individuals.

"It is time we took a look at this mystery with a fresh set of eyes," she said.

Indian national K. S. Narendran said he wants to know the truth behind MH370's disappearance, and if he could finally learn what happened to his wife Chandrika Sharma who was aboard the plane.

"We need closure. The world needs closure," the management consultant said.

"Lives are important. So is truth. Personal loss is hard to bear, but to live in fear is intolerable.  If we can know what happened and do so collectively by all means in our hands, we help ourselves and we serve others."

The Australian-led Joint Agency Coordination Centre said on May 29 that the first phase of the search had ended with no trace of the plane.

The search will enter a new phase covering a 60,000 square kilometre area along MH370’s probable flight arc over the southern Indian Ocean, but only after a bathymetric survey map of the sea floor is completed within a three-month window.

The ongoing search for flight MH370 is considered the longest and most expensive in the world’s aviation history, with the Reuters news agency estimating costs to have hit RM141 million for the first month alone.

The Boeing 777 jet, which was carrying 239 people on board, disappeared on March 8 after the plane veered from its Beijing-bound flight path and flew in the opposite direction towards the southern Indian Ocean.