Jane Onyanga-Omara

USA TODAY

The search for the doomed Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 ended fruitlessly Tuesday, three years after the Boeing 777 went missing.

The Joint Agency Coordination Center in Australia said it suspended the search after teams combed the 46,000-square mile search zone in the southern Indian Ocean without finding the plane.

"The decision to suspend the underwater search has not been taken lightly nor without sadness," the center said in a statement.

"Whilst combined scientific studies have continued to refine areas of probability, to date no new information has been discovered to determine the specific location of the aircraft," it added.

China and Malaysia worked with Australia on the search.

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The aircraft disappeared on March 8, 2014, during a flight from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to Beijing with 239 people aboard.

Two sections of flaps were traced to the plane, but the fuselage has not been found.

Voice370, a support group for relatives of the passengers and crew, said it was dismayed at the decision and called for Australia, China and Malaysia to extend the search north of the existing search zone based on a recommendation by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau in Dec. 2016.

"In our view, extending the search to the new area defined by the experts is an inescapable duty owed to the flying public in the interest of aviation safety. Commercial Planes cannot just be allowed to disappear without a trace," it said in a statement.

The group acknowledged the "tremendous effort of the nations involved thus far."

Lee Khim Fatt, the husband of Foong Wai Yueng, a flight attendant on the plane, told the Associated Press he was extremely disappointed that the search has been suspended, but still holds a small glimmer of hope that his wife is alive.

“I told my children to keep praying. As long as nothing is found, nothing is proven,” Lee said.