The Malaysian government has given final approval for a marine robotics company to renew the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which vanished more than a decade ago.
The missing aircraft, with 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board, is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean. It remains one of the biggest mysteries of modern-day aviation.
On Wednesday, Malaysia’s Transport Minister Anthony Loke said the cabinet agreed on the terms and conditions of an agreement with Ocean Infinity, a marine robotics company based in the United States which also conducted two previous searches for the Boeing 777, of which the most recent attempt concluded in 2018.
“The government is committed to continuing the search operation and providing closure for the families of the MH370 passengers,” Loke said, announcing the agreement’s progress, which he had previously said would span 18 months.
Although the finalised deal authorised a payout of $70m to Ocean Infinity, it is on a “no find, no fee” policy, meaning the company only gets paid upon successfully locating the wreckage.
A private search in 2018 by Ocean Infinity found nothing.
According to Minister Loke, the new search is estimated to cover 15,000sq km (5,790sq miles) at a new location in the southern Indian Ocean.
This follows a previous search conducted by Malaysia, Australia and China, covering 120,000sq km (46,332sq miles) of the southern Indian Ocean. Efforts at the time were based on automatic connection data between an Inmarsat satellite and the plane.
The final approval for a new search came three months after Malaysia gave the nod in principle to plans for a new search.
After MH370 went missing, investigators found that the aircraft’s communication systems were switched off less than an hour into the overnight flight. However, military radars picked up signals indicating the plane turned back across Malaysia, skirted the island of Penang and set course towards northern Sumatra.
All 26 countries that joined forces in the search and rescue mission for the missing aircraft produced no results.
After weeks of unsuccessful search efforts, the Malaysian government announced that the plane had flown until its fuel tanks were emptied before crashing into the depths of the southern Indian Ocean.
Since then, debris believed to be from the doomed flight was discovered washed up along the coast of Africa and some islands in the Indian Ocean.
As the search is set to resume after a hiatus of more than five years, grieving loved ones of the passengers of the missing flight had previously demanded compensation from Malaysian Airlines, Boeing, the aircraft’s engine maker Rolls-Royce and the Allianz insurance group, among others.
