Malaysia to resume search for missing MH370 

Malaysia’s government has agreed in principle to resume the search for the wreckage of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, more than 10 years after it disappeared in one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries, the country’s transport minister announced.

Anthony Loke said on Friday that the proposal to search a new area in the southern Indian Ocean came from United States-based exploration company Ocean Infinity, which had also conducted the most recent search for the plane that ended in 2018.

“The proposal for a search operation by Ocean Infinity is a solid one and deserves to be considered,” Loke told reporters. “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.”

Flight MH370, a Boeing 777 carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.

Loke said Ocean Infinity would receive $70m if the wreckage found is substantive.

Malaysian investigators initially did not rule out the possibility that the aircraft had been deliberately taken off course.

Investigators previously found that less than an hour into the overnight flight, its communications systems were turned off. Military radar then revealed the aircraft had turned back across Malaysia, skirted the island of Penang, and headed towards the northern tip of Sumatra.

Some 26 countries joined the search and rescue mission that followed the disappearance, but could find nothing.

Weeks later, the Malaysian government announced MH370 had flown until it ran out of fuel, ending its journey thousands of kilometres from Beijing in the depths of the southern Indian Ocean.

Debris, some confirmed and believed to be from the aircraft, has washed up along the coast of Africa and on islands in the Indian Ocean.

Relatives had been demanding compensation from Malaysia Airlines, Boeing, aircraft engine maker Rolls-Royce and the Allianz insurance group, among others.

Malaysia engaged Ocean Infinity in 2018 to search in the southern Indian Ocean, offering to pay up to $70m if it found the plane, but it failed on two attempts.

That followed an underwater search by Malaysia, Australia and China, which had 150 nationals on the flight, in a 120,000sq km (46,332sq mile) area of the southern Indian Ocean, based on data on automatic connections between an Inmarsat satellite and the plane.