The hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 is set to resume – more than a decade after it vanished in one of the greatest ever aviation mysteries.
There were 239 people on board the Boeing 777 when it disappeared on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on 8 March 2014.
Based on satellite data analysis, it’s thought the plane likely crashed somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean, off the coast of western Australia, but two major searches have failed to yield significant findings.
In December, Malaysia agreed to resume the hunt and exploration company Ocean Infinity has now deployed to the search zone.
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Malaysia has not yet signed off on the contract to search the seabed for wreckage, however, so there’s some uncertainty over whether the search has begun yet.
Transport minister Anthony Loke welcomed the company’s “proactiveness” to deploy its ships, adding: “Since Ocean Infinity already started to mobilise their ships, of course we welcome it because we have given the principle approval for the search to resume and just need to finalise the contract.”
But the search, which last paused in 2018, will not be open-ended, he said.
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“It is not indefinite; there is a certain timeframe given for the contract. These are the details that we need to finalise before we sign.”
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An enduring mystery
Contact was lost with Flight MH370 about 40 minutes after it took off from Kuala Lumpur.
Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah signed off with “Good night, Malaysian three seven zero”, as the plane entered Vietnamese airspace.
Soon afterwards, its transponder was turned off, making it much more difficult to track.
Military radar showed the plane left its flight path to swing back over northern Malaysia and Penang Island and then out towards the tip of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It then turned south and all contact was lost.
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Malaysia, Australia and China launched an underwater search covering 120,000 sq km (46,332 sq miles) costing $143m (£113m) but no traces of the plane were found.
Despite no major pieces of the aircraft – or the crucial black box devices – being found, some pieces of suspected aircraft debris have been collected along the coast of Africa and on islands in the Indian Ocean. Only three wing fragments have been confirmed to be from MH370.
The Boeing 777 plane vanished from radar shortly after taking off from Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, on 8 March 2014.
An expensive multinational search covering a 120,000 sq km (46,332 sq mile) area failed to turn up any clues.
A 495-page report into the disappearance in 2018 said the plane’s controls were likely deliberately manipulated to go off course.
Investigators stopped short of offering a conclusion on what happened, saying that depended on finding the wreckage.
Investigators found nothing suspicious in the background, financial affairs, training and mental health of both the captain and co-pilot.
