Search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 Set to Resume on December 30

The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 is expected to resume on December 30, more than a decade after the aircraft disappeared with 239 people onboard in one of aviation’s most enduring mysteries.

The renewed effort will be conducted by Ocean Infinity, a UK- and US-based marine robotics firm that previously led an unsuccessful private search for the aircraft. A search attempt earlier this year was suspended in April due to adverse weather conditions.

Malaysia’s transport ministry said the seabed search will be carried out intermittently over a 55-day period starting December 30. Ocean Infinity has agreed to a “no find, no fee” arrangement with the Malaysian government, under which the company will receive up to US$70 million (£52 million) only if wreckage from the aircraft is located.

Under the agreement, Ocean Infinity will search a new target area covering approximately 5,800 square miles (15,000 square kilometers) in the Indian Ocean. The company has declined to comment publicly on details of the latest operation.

Flight MH370 vanished from air traffic radar on March 8, 2014, while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The Boeing 777 was carrying 12 Malaysian crew members and 227 passengers, the majority of whom were Chinese nationals. The passenger list also included citizens of Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia, India, France, the United States, Iran, Ukraine, Canada, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Russia, and Taiwan.

The disappearance triggered one of the largest and most complex underwater search operations in aviation history. Australia led a multinational search effort alongside Malaysia and China, covering more than 46,300 square miles of seabed in a remote region of the southern Indian Ocean. That search was formally concluded in January 2017.

In a report released later that year, Australian investigators said the failure to locate the aircraft and provide closure to victims’ families was “a great tragedy” and “almost inconceivable in the modern age.” A subsequent three-month search conducted by Ocean Infinity in 2018 also failed to locate the wreckage.

Over the years, debris confirmed to be from the aircraft has washed ashore along the African coastline and on islands in the Indian Ocean. Analysts have used drift-pattern modeling based on this debris to refine estimates of the aircraft’s likely final location.

The Malaysian transport ministry has not disclosed the precise coordinates of the new search area, stating only that it lies within “a targeted area assessed to have the highest probability of locating the aircraft.”

A Malaysian investigation report published in 2018 concluded that the aircraft was manually diverted from its planned route and that “unlawful interference by a third party” could not be ruled out. The report dismissed theories suggesting a deliberate suicide mission by the flight crew and found no evidence of mechanical failure.

Relatives of those onboard have welcomed the renewed search, saying that answers remain essential both for closure and for aviation safety. Danica Weeks, whose husband Paul, an Australian citizen, was among the passengers, said her family has “never stopped wishing for answers.”

“I truly hope this next phase gives us the clarity and peace we’ve been so desperately longing for, for us and our loved ones, since March 8, 2014,” she said.

Sources: AirGuide Business airguide.info, bing.com, theguardian.com