FILE – Flight Officer Ryan Gharazeddin scans the waters in the Indian Ocean south of Australia from a Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion during the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 on March 22, 2014.
Rob Griffith/AP
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Rob Griffith/AP
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Malaysia’s transport ministry said Wednesday that the deep-sea search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 will resume Dec. 30, reviving hopes of locating the jet that disappeared without a trace more than a decade ago.
The Boeing 777 aircraft disappeared from radar shortly after takeoff on March 8, 2014, carrying 239 people, mostly Chinese nationals, on board a flight from the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Satellite data showed that the plane veered from its flight path and headed south towards the far southern Indian Ocean, where it is believed to have crashed.
US-based marine robotics firm Ocean Infinity will search the targeted areas intermittently for a total of 55 days from December 30, believed to be the most likely to find the missing plane, the transport ministry said in a statement.
“The latest developments underline the Malaysian government’s commitment to providing support to the families affected by this tragedy,” it said.
Malaysia’s government in March greenlit a “no-find, no-fee” contract with Ocean Infinity to restart seabed exploration operations at a new 15,000-square-kilometre (5,800 sq mi) site in the ocean. Ocean Infinity will be paid $70 million only if the wreckage is discovered. The search was halted in April due to bad weather.
An expensive multinational search failed to yield any clues as to its location, although debris washed up on the East African coast and on islands in the Indian Ocean. A private search by Ocean Infinity in 2018 also turned up nothing.
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