Search for wreck of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 to resume 11 years | UK | News
Explorers will try to find the Malaysia Airlines plane that disappeared with 239 people on board 11 years ago. The Malaysian government has confirmed that Ocean Infinity will conduct deep-sea research to find Flight MH370 for 55 days from the end of December.
The flight disappeared from all air traffic control systems an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014, triggering one of the largest search efforts in history. Over the years, wreckage from the plane washed up on beaches throughout Africa and the Indian Ocean islands, but the flight recorder was never found to tell the story of what happened to the Boeing 777 with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board.
The Malaysian government said in a statement on Wednesday morning: “Ocean Infinity has confirmed with the Malaysian Government that it will restart intermittent seabed exploration operations for a total of 55 days.
“The search will be carried out in the target area assessed as having the highest probability of locating the aircraft, in accordance with the service agreement signed on March 25, 2025.”
Flight MH370 was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it lost contact with air traffic control shortly after the radio call, approximately 38 minutes into the flight.
But military radar continued tracking, showing that it veered sharply west before reaching Vietnam, which led it towards the Malay Peninsula.
Ocean Infinity had previously tried to search for the plane using autonomous underwater vehicles in 2018, but this attempt was stopped three months later. They have now been offered a reward of £56 million, but only if the plane is found.
The company had hoped to begin the mission early this year after the cabinet approved a mission to search a 15,000 square kilometer area in the southern Indian Ocean in March, but the mission was canceled due to bad weather.
The company said it has felt more technologically advanced taking on the mission since the 2018 initiative, with the use of robotic autonomous underwater vehicles and surface ships that use AI-powered seafloor mapping to detect debris.
Ocean Infinity’s chief executive Oliver Plunkett told the New Straits Times that the search was “arguably the most challenging and indeed the most relevant”.
“We are working with many experts, some outside of Ocean Infinity, to continue analyzing the data in hopes of narrowing the search area to an area where success can potentially be achieved.”
Multiple search efforts have previously failed, including a multinational search with a much larger radius of 74,000 square kilometers that was canceled in 2017.
