Malaysia government has agreed in principle to resume the “no find, no fee” search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, the transport minister announced on Friday, over a decade after the plane disappeared.
Flight MH370, a Boeing 777 carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.
Transport Minister Anthony Loke said the proposal to search a new area in the southern Indian Ocean came from exploration firm Ocean Infinity, which had also conducted the last search for the plane that ended in 2018.
The firm will receive $70 million if wreckage found is substantive, Loke told a press conference.
“Our responsibility and obligation and commitment is to the next of kin,” he said.
“We hope this time will be positive, that the wreckage will be found and give closure to the families.”
Unfolding Its History
Malaysian investigators initially did not rule out the possibility that the aircraft had been deliberately taken off course.
Debris, some confirmed and some believed to be from the aircraft, has washed up along the coast of Africa and on islands in the Indian Ocean.
The mystery surrounding its disappearance has fueled numerous conspiracy theories, ranging from allegations of deliberate action by the pilot to suggestions that the aircraft was downed by a foreign military.
A 2018 inquiry concluded that the plane’s flight controls were likely intentionally manipulated to divert it from its route, though it did not identify those responsible.
Investigators said that only the recovery of the wreckage could provide definitive answers.
Search For The Plane
More than 150 Chinese passengers were on the flight, with relatives demanding compensation from Malaysia Airlines, Boeing, aircraft engine maker Rolls-Royce and the Allianz insurance group among others.
Malaysia engaged Ocean Infinity in 2018 to search in the southern Indian Ocean, offering to pay up to $70 million if it found the plane, but it failed on two attempts.
That followed an underwater search by Malaysia, Australia and China in a 120,000 sq km (46,332 sq mile) area of the southern Indian Ocean, based on data of automatic connections between an Inmarsat satellite and the plane.
(With inputs from Reuters)
