Malaysia’s government has given final approval for a US-based marine robotics company to renew the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
Flight MH370, a Boeing 777, was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, including six Australian citizens and one New Zealand resident of Western Australia, when it vanished on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in 2014 in one of the world's greatest aviation mysteries.
Malysian cabinet ministers agreed to terms and conditions for a “no-find, no-fee” contract with Texas-based Ocean Infinity to resume the seabed search operation at a new 15,000-square-kilometre site in the Indian ocean.
Transport Minister Anthony Loke said Ocean Infinity will be paid $US70 million only if wreckage is discovered.
The Boeing 777 plane vanished from radar shortly after taking off on March 8, 2014, carrying 239 people, mostly Chinese nationals, on a flight from Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, to Beijing.
Satellite data showed the plane turned from its flight path and headed south to the far-southern Indian Ocean, where it is believed to have crashed.
An expensive multinational search failed to turn up any clues to its location, although debris washed ashore on the east African coast and Indian Ocean islands such as Reunion. A private search in 2018 by Ocean Infinity also found nothing.
The final approval for a new search came three months after Malaysia gave the nod in principle to plans for a fresh search.
Ocean Infinity CEO Oliver Punkett earlier this year reportedly said the company had improved its technology since 2018. He has said the firm is working with many experts to analyse data and had narrowed the search area to the most likely site.
Loke said his ministry will ink a contract with Ocean Infinity soon but didn’t provide details on the terms.
The firm has reportedly sent a search vessel to the site and indicated that January-April is the best period for the search.
“The government is committed to continuing the search operation and providing closure for the families of the passengers of flight MH370,” he said in a statement.
