The Malaysian government has given final approval for a United States-based marine robotics company to renew the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean more than a decade ago.
Cabinet ministers agreed to terms and conditions for a “no-find, no-fee” contract with Texas-based Ocean Infinity to resume the seabed search operation at a new 15,000-square-kilometre site in the ocean, Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke said in a statement on Wednesday.
The government first said in December last year that it had agreed in principle with Ocean Infinity’s proposal to resume the hunt for MH370. The company will be paid $US70 million ($110.2m) only if the wreckage of the flight is discovered.
The families of the 239 people who were on-board Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have been waiting for more than a decade for answers about its final resting place. (Reuters: Hasnoor Hussain)
The Boeing 777 plane vanished from radar shortly after taking off on March 8, 2014, carrying 239 people — mostly Chinese nationals but also including six Australians — on a flight from the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, in what has become one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries.
Satellite data showed the plane turned from its flight path and headed south to the far-southern Indian Ocean, where it is believed to have crashed.
An expensive multinational search failed to turn up any clues to its location, although debris washed ashore on the east African coast and Indian Ocean islands. A private search in 2018 by Ocean Infinity also found nothing.
The final approval for a new search came three months after Malaysia gave the nod in principle to plans for a fresh search.
Part of an aircraft wreckage, believed to have come from flight MH370, was displayed during a 10th anniversary commemoration of the plane going missing, in Malaysia in 2024. (Reuters: Hasnoor Hussain)
Ocean Infinity CEO Oliver Punkett earlier this year reportedly said the company had improved its technology since 2018.
He has said the firm was working with many experts to analyse data and had narrowed the search area to the most likely site.
Mr Loke said his ministry will ink a contract with Ocean Infinity soon but didn’t provide details on the terms. The firm has reportedly sent a search vessel to the site and indicated that between January and April is the best period for the search.
“The government is committed to continuing the search operation and providing closure for the families of the passengers of flight MH370,” he said in a statement.
A ship that will look for the missing plane was deployed to its Indian Ocean search zone late last month, ship tracking data showed, even though a deal had yet to be signed with the government.
AP/Reuters