Malaysia agrees to launch new search for MH370, which disappeared a decade ago with 239 people on board

Malaysia announced on Friday that it had agreed to launch a new search Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370who disappeared 10 years ago in one of aviation's greatest mysteries.

Boeing 777 with 239 people on board disappeared from radar screens on March 8, 2014. on the way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Despite the largest search in the history of aviation, the plane was never found. 17 days after the plane went missing, Malaysia's prime minister said that based on satellite data, his government concluded that the plane had crashed in a remote corner of the Indian Ocean, and that there were no survivors.

Transport Minister Anthony Loke says Malaysia has agreed to a new search operation by a maritime intelligence firm The infinity of the oceanwho also conducted an unsuccessful hunt in 2018.

The company's first efforts followed a massive Australian-led search for the plane that lasted three years before it was called off in January 2017.

Locke said the new 5,800-square-mile area in the southern Indian Ocean will be surveyed by Ocean Infinity, a company based in the U.K. and the U.S.

“The new search area proposed by Ocean Infinity is based on the latest information and data analysis carried out by experts and researchers,” Locke said.

“The proposal for the Ocean Infinity search operation is strong and deserves consideration,” he told reporters.

The government said it had agreed “in principle” to Ocean Infinity's proposal on December 13, with the Department for Transport to finalize terms by early 2025.

A new search will resume “as soon as the contract is finalized and signed by both parties,” Locke said.

“They informed us that the ideal time to search in the designated waters is between January and April. We are working to finalize the agreement as soon as possible,” he added.

“I sincerely hope that the death of MH370 will stop. Let all questions be answered,” 60-year-old Malaysian Rasila Abu Samah, stepmother of one of the passengers, told AFP.

Malaysian man Shim Kok Chau, 49, whose wife was a flight attendant on the ill-fated flight, said he accepted her fate but hoped to find out what happened to the plane, “why it happened and who did it”.

Other victims included a famous group of 24 Chinese calligraphy artists who were returning from an exhibition of their work. The two young Iranians on the plane, Puriya Nur Mohammad Mehrdad, 18, and Delawar Seyed Mohammadreza, 29, were traveling on stolen passports in search of a better life in Europe.

The two US citizens on the plane were young children: 4-year-old Nicole Meng and 2-year-old Yan Zhang.

Philip Wood was the only one An adult American in flight. The head of IBM lived in Beijing and planned to move to the capital of Malaysia with his girlfriend Sarah Budge.

“No find, no fee”

The new search will follow the same “no find, no pay” principle as the previous Ocean Infinity search, with the government only paying if they find the plane.

The contract is for 18 months, and Malaysia will pay the company $70 million if the plane is found, Loke said.

He said the decision to agree to a new search “reflects the Malaysian government's commitment to continue the search operation and bring closure to the families of the MH370 victims”.

The initial Australian-led search covered 120,000 square kilometers in the Indian Ocean, but found almost no trace of the plane, only some wreckage.

In July 2015, a fragment of the plane later confirmed to be a flaperon from MH370 was found washed ashore on Reunion Island in the western Indian Ocean. This was the first solid evidence that a plane had crashed in the area. More debris was later found on the east African coast.

The disappearance of the plane has long been the subject of theories – including veteran pilot Zachary Ahmad Shah went rogue.

A final report on the tragedy, published in 2018, pointed to air traffic control failures and said the plane's course had been manually altered.

Asked if he was confident the plane would be found during the new search, Locke said: “At the moment no one can give guarantees.

“More than 10 years have passed, and it would be unfair to expect concrete commitments. However, according to the terms, any discovery must be credible. It cannot be just a few fragments, there are specific criteria set out in the contract. “