Kuala LumpurMalaysia announced on Friday that it has agreed to launch a new search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which 10 years ago remains one of aviation’s greatest enduring mysteries.
The Boeing 777, carrying 239 passengers, disappeared from radar screens on March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Despite the largest search in aviation history, the plane was never found.
Transport Minister Anthony Loke said Malaysia had agreed to a new search mission by marine exploration firm Ocean Infinity, which also conducted an unsuccessful hunt in 2018.
The company’s first attempt followed a massive Australian-led search for the aircraft that lasted three years before being called off in January 2017.
Lok said a new 15,000 square kilometer (5,800 square mile) area of the southern Indian Ocean would be scoured by Ocean Infinity, which is based in the United Kingdom and the United States.
“The new discovery proposed by Ocean Infinity is based on the latest information and data analysis conducted by field experts and researchers,” Lok said.
“The proposal for a search mission by Ocean Infinity is a solid one and deserves consideration,” he told reporters.
The government said it had agreed to Ocean Infinity’s proposal “in principle” on December 13, with the transport ministry expecting to finalize terms by early 2025.
The new search will resume “once the agreement is finalized and signed by both parties”, Lok said.
“They have informed us that the best time for exploration in the designated waters is between January and April. We are working to finalize the agreement as soon as possible,” he added.
“I really hope there is an end to the damage to MH370. All questions can be answered,” Malaysian Rosila Abu Samah, 60, one of the passengers, told AFP.
Shim Kok Chow, 49, from Malaysia, whose wife was a flight attendant on the ill-fated flight, said he had come to accept his fate but hoped to know what happened on the plane, “why it happened and who did it”.
The new search will be on the same “no find, no fee” principle as Ocean Infinity’s previous search, with the government only paying if the plane is found.
The agreement is for 18 months and Malaysia will pay the company $70 million if the plane is found, Locke said.
He said the decision to agree to a new search “reflects the Malaysian government’s commitment to continue the search operation and provide closure to the families of the MH370 victims”.
The original Australian-led search covered 120,000 square kilometers in the Indian Ocean but found no trace of the plane, only a few pieces of debris.
The plane’s disappearance has long been the subject of theories – from the credible to the outlandish – that veteran pilot Zahari Ahmed Shah went rogue.
The final report on the tragedy, released in 2018, pointed to a failure of air traffic control and that the plane’s course was changed manually.
Asked if he was confident a new search would find the plane, Locke said: “At this point, nobody can make guarantees.
“It has been more than 10 years, and it would be unfair to expect a concrete commitment. However, under the terms and conditions, any discovery must be credible. It cannot be just a few pieces; there are specific criteria outlined in the contract.”