12 years on, renewed hunt for missing Flight MH370 comes up empty as families press for answers

A girl stands in front of a condolence message board during a Day of Remembrance for MH370 event in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on March 3, 2019. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Twelve years after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 vanished with 239 people aboard, a renewed deep-sea search in the southern Indian Ocean has so far failed to locate the missing aircraft, Malaysian authorities said Sunday, as families pressed for the effort to continue.

The Air Accident Investigation Bureau said in a statement that a seabed search conducted by marine robotics company Ocean Infinity between March 2025 and January 2026 surveyed thousands of square kilometers of ocean floor but has not produced any confirmed findings of the aircraft wreckage.

Malaysia gave the nod to the Texas-based company last year to renew the search for Flight 370 under a “no-find, no-fee” contract at a new 15,000-square-kilometer (5,800-square-mile) site in the southern Indian Ocean where it was believed to have crashed. Ocean Infinity will be paid $70 million only if wreckage is discovered.

The search was carried out for 28 days in two phases — March 25–28 last year and Dec 31, 2025, to Jan 23 this year, covering about 7,571 square kilometers (2,923 square miles) of seabed, the bureau said. Weather periodically disrupted operations, it said.

“The search activities undertaken have not yielded any findings that confirm the location of the aircraft wreckage,” it said in a statement. It didn’t give details on when the search will resume.

The Boeing 777 plane vanished from radar shortly after taking off on March 8, 2014, carrying 239 people, mostly Chinese nationals, on a flight from Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, to Beijing. Satellite data showed the plane turned from its flight path and headed south to the far-southern Indian Ocean, where it is believed to have crashed.

An expensive multinational search failed to turn up any clues to its location, although debris washed ashore on the east African coast and Indian Ocean islands. A private search in 2018 by Ocean Infinity also found nothing.

Voice 370, representing the families of some of those aboard the missing plane, urged the government to extend Ocean Infinity’s contract and to consider similar arrangements with other deep-sea exploration companies.

Although Ocean Infinity’s contract runs until June, the group said the company’s vessel has been redeployed for other work and is unlikely to return soon to complete the remaining search areas due to the approaching winter months and deteriorating sea conditions.

“The government pays nothing unless the aircraft is found. Any request by Ocean Infinity to extend the search contract should therefore be granted without hesitation,” it said in a statement. “If the present search is unsuccessful, we would also urge Malaysia to kindly consider extending similar no find, no fee opportunities to other capable deep sea exploration companies.”

The group vowed to “continue the fight for answers. We will never give up!”

The Associated Press