Malaysia to resume search for missing flight MH370, more than a decade after plane vanished
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – SEPTEMBER 05: A Malaysia Airlines Aircraft at Sydney Airport on September 05, 2024 in Sydney, Australia.
James Gourley | Getty Images News | Getty Images
The search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 will resume later this month, more than a decade after the jet disappeared in one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries.
The deep-sea search for missing wreckage of the aircraft will resume on Dec. 30, with U.S-based marine robotics firm Ocean Infinity carrying out the operation intermittently for a period of 55 days, Malaysia’s transport ministry said in a statement Wednesday.
“The search will be carried out in targeted area assesed to have the highest probability of locating the aircraft,” the ministry said, without specifying the location of the search area.
Flight MH370 was carrying 12 crew members and 227 passengers en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it disappeared from air traffic radar on Mar. 8, 2014, prompting multiple rounds of search efforts that have proved fruitless.
In March, the Malaysian government approved a new search for the missing aircraft’s debris, commissioning Ocean Infinity on a “no-find, no-fee” contract, in which the company will receive $70 million only if wreckage was discovered. However, the search was halted in April due to bad weather conditions.
Malaysia also engaged Ocean Infinity to search the southern Indian Ocean in 2018, but it failed to find any substantive wreckage.
TOPSHOT – A woman writes a message during an event held by relatives of the passengers and supporters to mark the 10th year since the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 carrying 239 people disappeared from radar screens on March 8, 2014 while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, in Subang Jaya on March 3, 2024.
Arif Kartono | Afp | Getty Images
In January 2017, Malaysia, China and Australia ended a futile two-year underwater search. In a 440-page investigation report that year, Australian officials said they had identified “a specific area of the Indian Ocean” that was more likely to be where the aircraft ended the flight.
The report added that some debris, believed to be from the aircraft, washed ashore on the east African coast and Indian Ocean islands in 2015 and 2016.
Malaysia’s former prime minister Najib Razak said in 2014 that the jetliner had its communication and tracking system deliberately disabled and flown off course for more than six hours after it disappeared from the radar.
Onboard the flight were more than 150 Chinese passengers, 50 Malaysians, and citizens of France, Australia, Indonesia, India, the U.S., Ukraine and Canada, among others.
