The search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is expected to resume on 30 December, more than a decade after the plane disappeared with 239 people onboard in one of aviation’s greatest mysteries.
A renewed search by Ocean Infinity, a UK and US-based marine robotics company, had begun earlier this year but was called off in April because of bad weather.
The Malaysian transport ministry announced this month that the search of the seabed would be conducted intermittently over 55 days from 30 December.
Ocean Infinity has agreed a “no find, no fee” contract with Malaysia, under which the company will search a new 5,800-sq-mile (15,000-sq-km) site in the ocean and be paid $70m (£52m) only if wreckage is discovered. The company has declined to comment on the latest search.
Flight MH370 veered off course and vanished from air traffic radar during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on 8 March 2014. It was carrying 12 Malaysian crew and 227 passengers, most of whom were Chinese citizens. Thirty-eight Malaysian passengers were also on board, along with seven Australian nationals and residents, plus citizens from Indonesia, India, France, the US, Iran, Ukraine, Canada, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Russia and Taiwan.
The flight’s disappearance led to one of the world’s biggest underwater search operations. Australia led the multinational effort, along with Malaysia and China, that covered more than 46,330 sq miles of the seafloor in a remote area of the southern Indian Ocean. The search ended in January 2017. in a report later that year, Australian investigators the inability to bring closure for victims’ families was a great tragedy and almost inconceivable in the modern age.
In 2018, Ocean Infinity conducted a three-month search, though this also proved fruitless.
Debris, some confirmed to be from the plane, has washed up over the years along the coast of Africa and on islands in the Indian Ocean. This has been used in drift-pattern analysis to help narrow down the plane’s possible location.
Details on the location of Ocean Infinity’s latest search has not been given, and the Malaysian transport ministry has said only that it would be in “a targeted area assessed to have the highest probability of locating the aircraft”.
In 2018, an official investigation by Malaysia concluded the plane was manually turned around midair, rather than being under the control of autopilot, and that “unlawful interference by a third party” could not be ruled out. However, the report dismissed theories that had suggested the pilot and first officer brought the flight MH370 down in a suicide mission, and ruled out mechanical failure as a cause.
The relatives of those onboard have long said answers are needed to prevent another tragedy. They have welcomed the renewed search effort. Danica Weeks, whose husband, Paul, an Australian citizen who was a passenger, said this month her family have “never stopped wishing for answers”.
“I truly hope this next phase gives us the clarity and peace we’ve been so desperately longing for, for us and our loved ones, since March 8th 2014,” she said.
