The search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 will soon resume more than a decade after the plane and its 239 passengers and crew members disappeared from radar.
The Malaysian government said Wednesday that it plans to renew efforts to unravel a mystery that began March 8, 2014 when the airliner traveling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing vanished 39 minutes after leaving the runway.
Texas marine robotics company Ocean Infinity will lead the charge.
An extensive 46,000-square-mile search involving aircraft, ships and submarine crews from Malaysia, China and Australia failed to determine what happened to the ill-fated flight, which is believed to have crashed somewhere in the Indian Ocean.
Malaysian officials have since said they would continue looking for Flight 370 if they had new evidence to point them in the right direction. The country’s transportation department now says it has reached an agreement with the Ocean Infinity, which conducted a 2018 search for the Boeing 777 that lasted a few months and found nothing. The Austin-based operation agreed to a “no find, no fee” deal in March. Renewed efforts are set to begin later this month.
Ocean Infinity’s new proposal would implement updated technology, though it’s not clear if the company or Malaysian officials have new information on the plane’s whereabouts.
Search vessels at one point detected ultrasonic signals possibly transmitted by the airliner’s black box, which failed to help locate the plane.
In July 2015 a piece of the jet washed up on France’s Reunion Island in the western Indian Ocean. More debris was later located along Africa’s east coast.
Initial rescue efforts were hampered by a combination of rough weather and scant details about how and where the plane may have crashed. The areas searched had average depths of 2.5 miles.
Flight 370’s pilot’s last radio call was to Kuala Lumpur air traffic controllers. The crew failed to check in with Ho Chi Minh City operators when it was supposed to have entered into Vietnam’s airspace. Satellite data indicates the plane remained in the air after its transponder shut down for reasons unknown. The jet may have run out of fuel at some point.
With News Wire Services
