KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 2 — Malaysia Airlines has agreed to hand over some "top secret” documents to the Australian families suing it for compensation over the Flight MH370 tragedy, Australia’s ABC News reported today.

According to the report, Malaysia Airlines’ decision to hand over the documents came as a surprise as it had reportedly refused to hand the documents to the family despite requests for more than a year now.

The development reportedly emerged during a Federal Court Directions Hearing in Sydney in a case involving the adult children of four MH370 passengers — Rod Burrows, Mary Burrows, Bob Lawton, and Cathy Lawton.

"For any other aircraft it is a mundane list — but when it’s MH370, anything and everything that sheds new light, no matter how dim, is welcome news,” the report said.

The documents include operational notes logs or records held by the airline in relation to the flight, the flight plan lodged by the captain, and operations manual of the plane.

The other documents are: the most recent medical certificate held by each member of the flight crew, including both cockpit crew and cabin crew; the most recent pilots’ licence held by the crew; any operational notes logs or records held by the airline in relation to the flight; procedures for carrying dangerous goods; procedures for loss of radio contact, flying over oceans, and what to do in the event of hijacking.

"For the families, it will be the first real chance to peer inside the now defunct Malaysia Airlines business,” the report said.

"The maintenance log books of the Boeing 777 and medical and personnel records of the captain and co-pilot will be exposed to the lawyers,” it added.

The compensation case largely involves insurers Allianz, as Malaysia Airlines has since been rebranded as Malaysia Airlines Berhad which reportedly said it has no legal obligations to relatives of the passengers.

The rebranding of the national carrier came following the twin tragedies in 2014 involving MH370, which disappeared en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, and MH17, which was shot down by a missile while flying over Ukranian airspace. Flight MH370 disappeared with 239 people onboard and is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.

ABC said that Allianz is offering AU$250,000 per passenger as compensation in the case.