The Sunday Times said the children, wife, mother, brother and sister of Paul Weeks were suing Malaysia Airlines for “sudden shock” and “mental harm” they suffered after the plane vanished.

Weeks, who was based in Perth, was one of 239 people on board the Boeing 777 flight which went missing while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.

Next-of-kin had started to file suits before a two-year international deadline expired.

The newspaper said the family sought compensation for “personal injury, loss and damage” which they blamed on negligence by MAS.

Relatives of a dozen Chinese passengers have filed suits in Beijing against MAS, aircraft manufacturer Boeing, engine manufacturer Rolls Royce and others.

The aircraft is believed to have been diverted off course and to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean to the west of Australia. An international search across 120,000 square kilometres of ocean have discovered nothing. Last July, however, a wing fragment washed ashore in the western Indian Ocean island of Reunion, off Africa, and has been confirmed to be debris from the MH370 aircraft, a Boeing 777.