The search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is set to resume later this month, over a decade after the plane vanished in one of aviation’s most enduring mysteries. The deep-sea operation will begin on Dec. 30 and continue intermittently for 55 days, conducted by U.S.-based marine robotics company Ocean Infinity, according to Malaysia’s transport ministry.
Officials said the search will focus on a “targeted area assessed to have the highest probability of locating the aircraft,” though they did not disclose the exact location. Flight MH370, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members, disappeared from radar on Mar. 8, 2014, while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, triggering multiple search efforts over the years that failed to recover substantial wreckage. Ocean Infinity had previously been commissioned under a “no-find, no-fee” agreement, with $70 million payable only if the plane was located, but the mission was halted in April due to adverse weather. The company also conducted a search in the southern Indian Ocean in 2018 without success. Past multinational efforts, including a two-year underwater search concluded in 2017 by Malaysia, China, and Australia, identified an area in the Indian Ocean as the most probable crash site. Some debris, believed to be from MH370, washed ashore on the east African coast and nearby islands in 2015 and 2016. The flight included passengers from China, Malaysia, France, Australia, Indonesia, India, the U.S., Ukraine, Canada, and other nations.
