Malaysia set to restart search for MH370 after plane mysteriously vanished 10 years ago, transport minister confirms

The search for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 is set to restart more than 10 years after the plane mysteriously vanished.

The flight, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014 – sparking a continental-scale search effort.

Malaysia’s transport minister Athony Loke said American exploration firm Ocean Infinity, which had also conducted the last search for the plane that ended in 2018, tabled the proposal – and the southeast Asian state has agreed.

Ocean Infinity will receive as much as $70million (£56million) if it finds any substantive wreckage, Loke told a press conference.

“Our responsibility and obligation and commitment is to the next of kin,” he said.

“We hope this time will be positive, that the wreckage will be found and give closure to the families.”

Ocean Infinity’s 2018 efforts worked on a “no-cure, no-fee” deal for a three-month search, meaning the company would only get paid if it found the plane.

That search covered 43,243 square miles north of the original target area and also proved fruitless, ending in May that year.

LATEST ON MH370:

• MH370 ‘successful outcome within reach’ in hunt for missing aircraft as ‘active discussions’ held over new search
• MH370 mystery could be solved with chilling underwater ‘boom’ as groundbreaking new search looms
• MH370: Search for missing Malaysian Airlines flight set to restart after receiving ‘credible’ proposal

Malaysian investigators initially did not rule out the possibility that the aircraft had been deliberately taken off course.

Debris, some confirmed and some believed to be from the aircraft, has washed up along the coast of Africa and on islands in the Indian Ocean.

Among those on the flight were over 150 Chinese passengers – and their relatives have since demanded compensation from Malaysian Airlines, Boeing, aircraft engine firm Rolls-Royce and the Allianz insurance group among others.

Satellite data analysis at the time showed the plane likely crashed somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean, off the coast of western Australia. But two major searches, including Ocean Infinity’s last, failed to come up with any significant findings.

More than 30 pieces of suspected aircraft debris have been collected along the along the coast of Africa and on islands in the Indian Ocean, but only three wing fragments were confirmed to be from MH370.

And scientists have turned to “drift pattern analysis” in the hopes of narrowing down the aircraft’s possible location – but searches haven’t yet arrived at a precise location.

Also in 2018, a 495-page report was released into MH370’s disappearance – which said the Boeing 777’s controls were likely deliberately manipulated to take it off course, but investigators could not determine who was responsible.

Investigators insist that any conclusions will depend on finding the plane’s wreckage in full – the goal of Anthony Loke’s announcement today.