Marine robotics firm will resume deep-sea search for MH370 plane that vanished a decade ago

Flight officer Rayan Gharazeddine scans the water in the southern Indian Ocean off Australia from a Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion during a search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 on March 22, 2014. (AP Photo/Rob Griffith, File)wld

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysia’s transport ministry said Wednesday that a private firm will resume a deep-sea hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 later this month, more than a decade after the jet vanished without a trace.

The search will be carried out by Texas-based marine robotics firm Ocean Infinity, which signed a new “no-find, no-fee” contract with Malaysia’s government in March.

It is unclear if the company has new evidence of the plane’s location. Ocean Infinity CEO Oliver Punkett reportedly said last year that the company had improved its technology since 2018, when the firm made its first seabed search operation under a similar deal and found nothing. Punkett has said the firm is working with many experts to analyze data and had narrowed the search area to the most likely site.

Earlier this year the firm restarted the seabed search operation at a new 15,000-square-kilometre (5,800-square-mile) site in the Indian Ocean after Malaysia’s government gave it the greenlight, but the search was halted in April due to bad weather.

Ocean Infinity will be paid US$70 million only if wreckage is discovered.

The Boeing 777 plane disappeared 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. Apart from those small fragments, no bodies or wreckage have ever been found.

Malaysia’s transport ministry said in a brief statement Wednesday that Ocean Infinity will search intermittently from Dec. 30 for a total of 55 days, in targeted areas believed to have the highest likelihood of finding the missing aircraft.

“The latest development underscores the government of Malaysia’s commitment in providing closure to the families affected by this tragedy,” it said.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said, “We ... appreciate the efforts made by the Malaysian side.”

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Associated Press writer Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed.