TimeFor.News
The Malaysian government says it has agreed in principle to resume the search for a passenger jet that disappeared 10 years ago in one of aviation’s greatest mysteries.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared in March 2014 while en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur with 239 people on board.
Efforts to locate the wreckage of the Boeing 777 have fizzled over the years, and hundreds of families of those on board remain haunted by the tragedy.
On Friday, Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke said the cabinet had approved in principle a $70m (£56m) deal with US marine exploration firm Ocean Infinity to find the aircraft.
Under a “no find, no fee” arrangement, Ocean Infinity will only be paid when the wreck is found.
A 2018 search by Ocean Infinity in similar terms ended unsuccessfully after three months.
A multinational effort that cost $150 million ended in 2017 after two years of cleaning up the vast waters.
Although the government has accepted Ocean Infinity’s offer “in principle”, Loke said negotiations on the specific terms of the deal are still ongoing and will be finalized early next year.
The new search will cover an area of 15,000 square km in the southern Indian Ocean, based on new data that Kuala Lumpur found “credible”, the minister said.
“Hopefully this time it will be positive,” Loke said, adding that finding the wreckage would bring closure to the families of those on board.
Relatives of MH370 passengers have welcomed the Malaysian government’s approval of a new search.
“I’m so happy about the news… It feels like the best Christmas present ever,” Jacquita Gonzales, wife of MH370 supervisor Patrick Gomes, told the New Straits Times.
“This announcement evokes mixed emotions – hope, gratitude and sadness. After almost 11 years, the uncertainty and pain of not having answers has been incredibly difficult for us,” Intan Maizura Othaman told the newspaper. Her husband, Mohd Hazrin Mohamed Hasnan, was a cabin crew member.
Jiang Hui, whose mother was on the plane, told the Reuters news agency that the Malaysian government needed to take a “more open approach” to the search to allow more players to participate.
In a statement, Ocean Infinity CEO Oliver Plunkett said the Malaysian government’s decision was “excellent news”, adding: “We look forward to sharing further updates in the new year once we have finalized the details and the team prepare to leave”.
Flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur in the early hours of 8 March 2014. It lost communication with air traffic control less than an hour after take-off and radar showed it had deviated from its planned flight path.
Investigators generally agree that the plane went down somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean – although it’s not clear why.
Pieces of debris, believed to be from the plane, have washed up on the shores of the Indian Ocean in the years since the disappearance.
A number of conspiracy theories have emerged surrounding the aircraft’s disappearance, from speculation that the pilot deliberately shot down the plane to claims that it was shot down by foreign military personnel.
A 2018 investigation into the aircraft’s disappearance found that the plane’s controls were likely deliberately tampered with to divert the course, but did not draw conclusions about who was behind it.
The investigators said then that “the answer can only be conclusive if the wreckage is found”.