More than a decade after it changed course and disappeared off radar, efforts to find the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 are set to resume after Malaysia’s Cabinet approved a “no find, no fee” agreement with British exploration firm Ocean Infinity.
The company will receive up to $70 million if the wreckage is found, depending on the area within which it is located, Transport Minister Anthony Loke Siew Fook announced, saying the government “is committed to continuing the search operation and providing closure for the families of the MH370 passengers.”
The airliner disappeared on March 8, 2014, with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board while travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Since then, many theories have been advanced to explain what happened and why, but without the “black box” flight recorder or signs of major wreckage, they remain speculative.
However, investigators generally agree that the plane crashed somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean, and pieces of debris believed to be from the plane have washed up on the shores of islands in the years following its disappearance.
The flight’s cabin crew last communicated with air traffic control roughly 38 minutes after takeoff when the flight was over the South China Sea, leading initial searches to focus on that region.
The first search occurred soon after the incident.
Between March 18 and April 28, 19 vessels and 345 sorties by military aircraft searched more than 4.6 million square kilometers (roughly 1.8 million square miles) of ocean.
That effort was suspended on Jan. 17, 2017, having found no evidence other than some marine debris on the coast of Africa.
It had been the most expensive search operation in aviation history, with Malaysia estimated to have spent $13.5 million, Australia around $132 million, and other countries involved in the search reportedly having also spent sizable sums.
Six Australians were on board, along with 50 Malaysians and people from 12 other countries, but by far the greatest number—153—were from China.
A year after the official search was called off, Ocean Infinity announced that it was planning to resume the search using the chartered Norwegian ship Seabed Constructor in a narrowed area of 25,000 square kilometers (roughly 9,700 square miles).
The Malaysian government gave the go-ahead, provided that payment would be made only if the wreckage were found. However, the attempt was unsuccessful, and in May 2018, Fook announced the effort would conclude at the end of that month.
The final 1,500-page report from the Malaysian Ministry of Transport was released in July 2018. It concluded that MH370 had been manually turned around, taking it off its normal flight path just after 1 a.m. Malaysian time, “either by the pilot or a third party.”
From satellite communications, it was determined that the aircraft remained operational until at least 08:19. Investigators said at the time that “the answer can only be conclusive if the wreckage is found.”
Australian Researcher Says Plane Could be Located 6,000 Meters Deep
It’s not known whether the new search will cover the “Broken Ridge” area in the Indian Ocean, which research from Australian scientist Vincent Lyne suggests is the final resting place of MH370, after what he claims was “a mastermind pilot almost executing an incredible perfect disappearance in the Southern Indian Ocean.”Specifically, he says the plane—a B777-200 aircraft—is in a 6,000-meter-deep hole at the eastern end of the Broken Ridge (latitude: 33.02S, longitude: 100.27E), “within a very rugged and dangerous ocean environment renowned for its wild fisheries and new deep-water species.
“With narrow steep sides, surrounded by massive ridges and other deep holes, it is filled with fine sediments—a perfect ‘hiding’ place.”
Data recovered from a home-built flight simulator owned by the pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, showed that someone had plotted a course to the southern Indian Ocean.
Loke said the government would sign a contract for 18 months, giving Ocean Infinity until late 2026 to cover the area.
