Malaysia's cabinet has agreed to a proposal to launch a new search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which mysteriously disappeared 10 years ago, the transport minister announced.
The Boeing 777 with 239 people on board disappeared from radar screens on March 8, 2014, while travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, and despite the largest search in aviation history, the plane was never found.
Transport Minister Anthony Locke stated on 13 December that the government had "agreed in principle to accept the offer of Ocean Infinity", a US-UK based company, to continue the search "in a new area estimated at 15,000 sq km in the southern Indian Ocean".
"The proposal for a search operation by (US-based research company) Ocean Infinity is sound and deserves consideration," Anthony Locke was quoted by AFP as saying.
The Department of Transportation is currently negotiating the terms of the agreement, which is expected to be finalized by early 2025.
The new search will be on a "no find, no fee" basis, where the Malaysian government will pay nothing to Ocean Infinity if they find the plane, Locke added.
The government had already engaged Ocean Infinity in 2018 to search for the plane, but to no avail.
"The new search area proposed by Ocean Infinity is based on the latest information and data analysis done by experts and researchers," Locke said.
"The company's proposal is considered credible and deserves further evaluation by the Malaysian government as the country of registration of MH370," the minister added.
He claimed that the decision to agree to a new search "reflects the commitment of the Malaysian government to continue the search operation and provide protection to the families of the victims of MH370".
Since the plane's disappearance in 2014, the Australian-led search, which covered 120,000 sq km in the Indian Ocean, has found almost no trace of the plane and only some pieces of wreckage have been picked up.
The operation was called off in January 2017, after which the first search for Ocean Infinity began.
The plane's disappearance has long been the subject of theories ranging from the plausible to the outlandish - including one that veteran pilot Zahari Ahmad Shah escaped.
The final report on the tragedy, released in 2018, pointed to air traffic control failures and said the plane's course had been altered manually. | BGNES
