Malaysia agrees to resume search for missing passenger plane

Malaysia’s government says it has agreed in principle to resume the search for a passenger plane that disappeared 10 years ago in one of aviation’s biggest 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 failed 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 company Ocean Infinity to find the plane.

Under a “no find, no pay” agreement, Ocean Infinity will receive payment only when the remains are found.

A search conducted in 2018 by Ocean Infinity on similar terms ended without success after three months.

A multinational effort costing $150 million ended in 2017 after two years of exploring vast waters.

While the government accepted Ocean Infinity’s offer “in principle,” Loke said negotiations on the specific terms of the deal were still ongoing and would be finalized early next year.

The new search will cover an area of ​​15,000 square kilometers in the southern Indian Ocean.

“We hope this time it’s positive,” Loke said, adding that finding the wreckage would bring closure to the families of those on board.

Flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur in the early hours of March 8, 2014. It lost communication with air traffic control less than an hour after takeoff and radar showed it deviated from its planned flight path.

Investigators generally agree that the plane crashed somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean, although it is unclear why it happened.

Pieces of debris, believed to be from the plane, have washed up on the shores of the Indian Ocean in the years since it went missing.

A number of conspiracy theories have emerged surrounding the plane’s disappearance, from speculation that the pilot had deliberately shot down the plane to claims that it had been shot down by foreign militaries.

A 2018 investigation into the plane’s disappearance found that the plane’s controls were likely deliberately manipulated to divert it from its 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 of the plane is found.”