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MH370 new search update: 21/12/24

Via Yahoo News:

Malaysia to resume search for missing flight MH370 a decade after disappearance

Chris Price Fri, 20 December 2024 at 8:46 pm GMT+11·3-min read

Searches coordinated between the Australian, Malaysian and Chinese defence forces previously failed to find the wreck - LSIS Bradley Darvill/Australian Defence/AFP via Getty Images

Malaysia has agreed to resume the search for the wreckage of missing Flight MH370 after a new analysis of data in one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries.

The country has struck a “no find, no fee” deal with Ocean Infinity, a US-British exploration company which also conducted the last search for the plane that ended in 2018, after it sought to narrow down the area where the missing plane might be.

The Malaysia Airlines flight vanished on its journey from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 2014.

Debris, some confirmed and some believed to be from the aircraft, has washed up along the coast of Africa and on islands in the Indian Ocean in the subsequent years. However, no one has ever been able to establish what happened to the Boeing 777, which was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew.

Anthony Loke, Malaysia’s transport minister, said the search was resuming in an effort to “give closure to the families”.

He said: “Our responsibility and obligation and commitment is to the next of kin.

“We hope this time will be positive, that the wreckage will be found and give closure to the families.”

Ocean Infinity will sweep an area in the southern Indian Ocean that has yet to be covered in the search.

MH370 flight disappeared over the Indian ocean while carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew - NAZRI MOHAMAD/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

The ocean, the third-largest in the world, accounts for about 20pc of the water area on Earth’s surface.

Mr Loke told a press conference that Ocean Infinity will receive $70m (£56m) if it finds substantive wreckage.

Ocean Infinity, which has offices in Southampton and Austin, Texas, submitted a search proposal to Malaysia earlier this year.

At the time, Oliver Plunkett, the chief executive, said: “This search is arguably the most challenging, and indeed the most pertinent one out there.


“We’ve been working with many experts, some outside of Ocean Infinity, to continue analysing the data in the hopes of narrowing the search area down to one in which success becomes potentially achievable.”

Malaysian investigators initially did not rule out the possibility that the aircraft had been deliberately taken off course.
More than 150 Chinese passengers were on the flight, with relatives demanding compensation from Malaysia Airlines, Boeing, aircraft engine maker Rolls-Royce and the Allianz insurance group among others.

Kuala Lumpur’s air traffic control received a final message from the cockpit of the plane 39 minutes into the flight, just as the aircraft was about to leave Malaysian airspace above the South China Sea.

Within seconds of entering Vietnamese airspace, flight MH370 disappeared off the radar. No distress call was made.

In the absence of the fuselage and the black box, the exact details of the final hours of MH370 remain unknown, leaving huge gaps in understanding of who caused its disappearance, and how.

Ocean Infinity failed on two attempts in 2018 to find the wreckage in the southern Indian Ocean.

That followed an underwater search by Malaysia, Australia and China in a 120,000 sq km (46,332 sq mile) area, based on the last satellite data captured from the plane.

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