Nearly 11 years after the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines flight, Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke announced on Tuesday (Feb 25) that the search for MH370 is resuming.
The maritime exploration company Ocean Infinity, which operates out of Britain and the United States, has initiated the search operation in the Indian Ocean, approximately 1,500 km off the coast of Perth, Australia.
Flight MH370, a Boeing 777 carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members, went missing on March 8, 2014, while traveling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Regarded as one of the greatest aviation mysteries in history, the case has prompted renewed efforts to locate the wreckage. Loke informed reporters that contract discussions between Malaysia and Ocean Infinity were still ongoing but acknowledged the firm’s initiative.
“They (Ocean Infinity) have convinced us that they are ready. That’s why the Malaysian government is proceeding with this,” Loke said. However, he did not specify how long the search would last.
In December 2024, the Malaysian government had already agreed in principle to resume efforts to locate the missing aircraft.
Despite conducting the most extensive search in aviation history, the plane has yet to be found.
Past searches of MH370
In 2018, Malaysian investigators partnered with Ocean Infinity to search for the wreckage in the southern Indian Ocean, offering a payment of up to USD 70 million if the plane was located. However, the search was unsuccessful.
Subsequently, Malaysia, Australia, and China carried out an underwater search across a 120,000-square-kilometer area in the southern Indian Ocean, relying on data from automatic connections between an Inmarsat satellite and the aircraft.
Additionally, the final report on the tragedy, published in 2018, highlighted shortcomings in air traffic control and stated that the plane’s course had been manually altered.
