Kuala Lumpur On Sunday, relatives of the 239 people who were on board the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 when it vanished into thin air nine years ago urged the Malaysian government to allow the US seabed exploration firm Ocean Infinity to resume the search for the missing aircraft.
The disappearance of Flight MH370 on March 8, 2014, while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, is one of the greatest aviation mysteries in history.
Malaysia contracted Ocean Infinity in 2018 to look for the plane in the southern Indian Ocean, promising up to $70 million in compensation if a successful search was conducted. Unfortunately, the plan didn’t work out.
Following a two-year, A$200 million ($135.36 million) underwater search by Malaysia, China, and Australia that turned up nothing, the company began its own search in January 2017.
Sunday, a group calling themselves Voice370 said that Ocean Infinity planned to begin a new search as early as this summer and urged the Malaysian government to accept any proposals from the firm on a conditional fee basis, meaning that the firm would only be paid if successful.
“Ocean Infinity, over the last 12 months have made real progress working with many people to further understand… the events in 2014,” Voice370 said in a statement, following a memorial event to mark the ninth year since MH370’s disappearance.
As a result, “in the end, this has greatly improved their chances of conducting a successful search.”
Requests for comment sent to Ocean Infinity and the Malaysian transport ministry were not immediately met with a response.
But Transport Minister Anthony Loke promised not to “close the book” on MH370, saying that future searches would be given due consideration if there was “new and credible information” on the aircraft’s potential location, which was read out at the memorial event.
Shipwreck remnants from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have been found on the shores of Africa and the islands of the Indian Ocean.
While Malaysian authorities had previously drawn no conclusions, they did not rule out the possibility that the plane had been deliberately diverted. Exchange rate ($1 = AU$1.4775)
