The Malaysian government says it has agreed in principle to resume the search for a passenger jet that vanished 10 years ago in one of aviation’s greatest mysteries.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared in March 2014 while on its way to Beijing, China, from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia with 239 people on board.
Efforts to locate the wreckage of the Boeing 777 have sputtered over the years and hundreds of families of those on board remain haunted by the tragedy.
On Friday, Malaysia’s transport minister Anthony Loke said the cabinet approved in principle a $70m (£56m) deal with US-based marine exploration firm Ocean Infinity to find the aircraft.
Under a “no find, no fee” arrangement, Ocean Infinity will get paid only when the wreckage is found.
A 2018 search for the MH370 wreckage by Ocean Infinity under similar terms ended unsuccessfully after three months.
A multinational effort that cost $150m (£120m) ended in 2017 after two years of scouring vast waters. The governments of the three nations involved – Malaysia, Australia and China – said the search would only be resumed “should credible new evidence emerge” of the aircraft’s location.
While the government has “in principle” accepted Ocean Infinity’s offer, Loke said negotiations over specific terms of the deal were still ongoing and would be finalised early next year.
The new search will cover a 15,000 sq km patch in the southern Indian Ocean, based on new data that Kuala Lumpur found to be “credible”, the minister said.
“We hope this time will be positive,” Loke said, adding that finding the wreckage would give closure to the families of those on board.
Relatives of passengers on MH370 welcomed the Malaysian government’s approval of a new search.
“I am so happy for the news… [It] feels like the best Christmas present ever,” Jacquita Gonzales, the wife of MH370 inflight supervisor Patrick Gomes, told the New Straits Times.
“This announcement stirs mixed emotions – hope, gratitude, and sorrow. After nearly 11 years, the uncertainty and pain of not having answers have been incredibly difficult for us,” Intan Maizura Othaman also told the papers. Her husband, Mohd Hazrin Mohamed Hasnan, was a member of the cabin crew.
Jiang Hui, whose mother was on the plane, told the Reuters news agency the Malaysian government must have a “more open approach” to the search to allow more players to take part.
In a statement, Ocean Infinity CEO Oliver Plunkett said the Malaysian government’s decision was “great news”, adding: “We look forward to sharing further updates in the new year once we’ve finalised the details and the team gets ready to go.”
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 that it deviated from its planned flight path.
Investigators generally agree that the plane crashed somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean – though it is unclear as to why it happened.
Pieces of debris, believed to be from the plane, have washed up on shores of the Indian Ocean in the years after the disappearance.
A host of conspiracy theories have sprouted up around the aircraft’s disappearance, from speculation that the pilot had deliberately brought down the plane to claims that it had been shot down by a foreign military.
A 2018 investigation into the aircraft’s disappearance found that the plane’s controls were likely deliberately manipulated to take it off course – but drew no conclusions about who had been behind it.
Investigators said at the time that “the answer can only be conclusive if the wreckage is found”.
