The Malaysian government has declared the case of the disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 as an accident and has said that the flight had no survivors, after closing the case.

In a statement issued by the Department of Civil Aviation of Malaysia, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, the Director General said, "We officially declare Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 an accident. We have endeavored and pursued every credible lead and reviewed all available data. Despite all these efforts over the last 327 days, the search unfortunately has yet to yield the location of the missing aircraft."

"The announcement is in accordance with standards of annexes 12 and 13 in the International Civil Aviation. It will allow families of the passengers to obtain assistance through compensation," he said.

The search operation has been going on since the plane, Boeing 777, went missing on March 8, 2014. However, the officials have said that the recovery operation will continue, but the 239 people on-board are now presumed dead, according to the BBC.

Of the 239 passengers on board, most of them were Chinese descent. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, speaking on the development and the announcement made, said that the Malaysian government should settle claims with the families of the victims.

He said, "We hope the Malaysian side honors its promises and fully investigates the incident, settling claims and making peace with the families, especially continuing to make all efforts to find the missing plane and its passengers," according to Reuters.

The missing flight, which was on a routine flight to Beijing, was initially thought to have been lost somewhere in the South China Sea. But after months of search and analysis, it was later concluded that the crash might have occurred in the Indian Ocean, west of Australia, after running out of fuel, according to The Independent.